How Not to Pray
Matthew 6:5-8
Chenoa Baptist Church
Pastor Jefferson Williams
01-27-19
Our Father
Many years ago, I attended a Baccalaureate service at a church in Pontiac. At one point in the service, the pastor asked us to say “The Lord’s Prayer.” I had been studying this prayer in my private devotions and had been deeply affected by these words of Jesus. I was sitting next to a sixteen-year-old student named Katie. When the prayer ended I turned and noticed Katie had tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong. She said, “I’ve prayed that prayer in almost every church service I’ve ever been in. But that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone pray that prayer like that actually meant it!”
Kingdom Come
This morning we begin a new series called “Kingdom Come.” We are going to spend the next weeks studying Matthew 6:5-18 and focus in on what has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer in verses 9-13. [Luke also records an abbreviate version of this prayer]
As we’ve studied the small book of Habakkuk in our Wednesday morning Bible study, it’s become clear that God is God and we are not. My Scripture verse for this year is found in Habakkuk 3:1-2:
“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”
It is my belief that we will see God do amazing things “in our day” if we get serious about prayer. 2019 will be a year of prayer and fasting for First Baptist Chenoa. I’m praying for miracles to happen, people to be healed, marriages to be put back together, addictions conquered, and things to happen that we simply cannot take credit for. As my brother reminded us, we will be excited but not surprised.
Teach us to Pray
In Luke 11:1, we see the disciples ask Jesus to “teach us to pray.” They didn’t ask Him to teach them to heal people, preach, counsel, or cast out demons. They had been watching Jesus and had noticed how He related to His Father. In essence, they say, “Jesus teach us to relate to the Father the way you do.”
Jesus answered by given them a model prayer, a mere fifty-seven words in the Greek that takes less than 20 seconds to repeat. For 2,000 years, in churches all over the globe, this prayer has been on the lips of believers.
Prayer is part of every major religion. Muslims pray toward Mecca. Jews pray at the Wailing Wall. For Buddhist, prayer is the act of emptying the mind.
But just like the disciples, many of us still feel inadequate in the area of prayer.
Richard Halverson lists four reasons that we shy away from prayer:
1. Unbelief – we simply doubt that God is listening or that He cares
2. Indifference – if God already knows, then why pray?
3. Priorities – we are too caught up in this world.
4. It’s difficult – pray is hard work and takes discipline. Maxine’s mom and stepdad would pray all night. I have trouble praying for 20 mins!
Notice that the disciples didn’t ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. They say, “…teach us to pray.”
Dr. Adrian Rogers wrote this:
“The greatest problem we face is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer. Tragically, many of our prayers are so vague that if God were to answer them, we wouldn’t even know it.”
Jesus brilliantly answers their request with a prayer that helps them, and us, have a roadmap to navigate the wonders of prayer.
Text in its Context
Remember that we should always study the text within its context. This summer, we studied the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12 that begin what we know as the Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount is just that, a sermon that gives Jesus’ manifesto on life in the Kingdom of God. If we are truly born again and are part of the kingdom, it should affect the way we live and love others. It will affect our attitudes, beliefs and actions. It affects our mind and our hands and feet.
Starting in chapter 6, Jesus is going to give the disciples His parameters on three very important actions – giving (1-4), prayer (5-13), and fasting (16-18).
Jesus begins this entire section with a thesis statement:
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)
Jesus wants us to know that God is not only looking at the outside actions but the inside attitudes. If you give, pray, or fast to be seen by others then you will receive your reward – the praise of men. And how pitiful that reward truly is!
Look at Me!
Jesus begins His teaching about prayer by giving two examples of how NOT to pray. His disciples had seen both of these examples many times.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:5-6)
Notice that Jesus assumes they will pray, even a little. He says “when you pray” not “if you pray.”
The “you” in “when you pray” is plural – “you all.” Remember that Jesus is speaking to believers. He expects us to not only pray individually but to pray together.
Jesus gives us an example of how not to pray. He uses the word “hypocrite.” This word originally meant one who takes on a role, such as an actor. In ancient plays, the actors would wear masks to take on another character. It has come to mean someone who says one thing but does another. It is insincerity at its worst.
These people love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners to pray. It isn’t the fact that they were standing to pray. Prayers were offered standing (I Sam 1:26), kneeling (2 Chron 6:13), laying prostate (Numbers 16:22), and with holy hands lifted high (I Tim 2:8). In fact, about the only posture you can’t find in the Bible is “bow your head and close your eyes.”
It wasn’t the fact that they were praying publicly because many of the prayers in Scripture were spoken in public.
A little background would help. The Pharisees, the group that Jesus was actually talking about, prayed three times a day a set of eighteen different prayers. For the Pharisees, prayer was a business. They would put their prayer shawl on and just happen to be in the market or other places where people gathered when it time to pray.
Jesus says that they wanted to be “seen by others” and they have “received their reward in full.” They paraded their piety in front of men for the applause. It was as if they were performing, not actually praying. They wanted people to see and be impressed.
Eugene Peterson paraphrased these verses this way:
“And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?”
In Luke 18, Jesus told a parable that illustrated this point. A Pharisee and a tax collector went to pray.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’” (Luke 18:9-12)
The Greek actually says the Pharisee prayed “to himself.” He spoke loudly, in an “I’m talking to God voice” and let everyone know, especially the tax collector, how holy he really was.
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’(Luke 18:13)
This is the closest you will get to finding the “sinner’s prayer” in the Scriptures. The tax collector, head down in shame, beats his chest and begs for mercy.
Jesus shocks His listeners when He said that the tax collector went home “justified before God.” The Pharisee was performing for an audience. The tax collector was desperate for deliverance and prayed to an audience of One.
I remember when I was a brand new Christian and learned about this. We were sitting in a circle and were praying. I was scared to death that I would be asked to pray out loud. That’s when Jason stood up.
Jason had already committed to going to seminary. He started his prayer and it was amazing. He used words I had never even heard of and it was like he was speaking another language.
Then it was Chris’ turn. He fell out of the chair and knelt on the floor with his hands up. He begin to pray and tears ran down his face: “God, dude, You are so amazing. You are so good. Your grace is overwhelming.”
It was so clear that I still remember it to this day. I learned something about prayer. Jason knew a lot about God. Chris knew God. And he knew Him in a way that I wanted to know God.
It’s so easy to bring even our sin into our prayers. We can preach through prayer, we can gossip through prayer, and we can perform for others.
I’ve been asked to pray and then the person commented how beautiful my prayer was. So then the next time, I’m conscious as I’m praying that people are listening.
Closet Time
Jesus starts with how not to pray but then turns the page and says:
“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
The word “you” in this verse is singular. It is directed at us as individuals. Don’t pray for the applause of men but get alone and pray to your Father.
In that time, the roof of the houses was flat. In the cool of the day, people would sit on the roof to eat and relax. There would be a storeroom built above the porch. It was an upper room where grain or treasures were kept. It would be the only room in the house with a door.
This has nothing to do with architecture or geography. He is more interested in our isolation than our location.
A little boy studied these verses in Sunday school and later that day climbed up in the hayloft of the barn and then pulled the ladder up with him. He told his mom he was going to his “upper room.”
Jesus leads us to the upper room to the God who is “in secret.” Close the door to distractions and to interruptions. In that quiet place there is no temptation to show off in front of others. Simply talk to your Abba. God the Father loves to listen to His children. Jesus said that God will see you and reward you.
Martin Luther’s barber asked for some advice about how to pray:
“So as a diligent and good barber you must keep your thoughts, senses, and eyes precisely on the hair and scissors and razors, and not forget where you’ve trimmed and shaved, for if you want to talk a lot or become distracted thinking about something else you might cut his nose, mouth, or even his throat. How much more does prayer need to have the undivided attention of the whole heart alone, if it is to be a good prayer.”
These rewards have nothing to do with the recognition of men. It’s much sweeter than that. God will direct and guide you. He will give you wisdom. He will increase your faith and give you a deeper sense of His care. But the real reward is His Presence.
When I lived in North Carolina, I worked at Red Lobster. I would work a dinner shift and then drive almost an hour back home. About ten minutes from where we lived, I would stop at T in the road, in the middle of tobacco fields. I would get out of my car and lay in the road. It was midnight. I never saw another car. That was closet. That was my upper room. I poured out my heart to God about my coworkers and about our future and a million other things. God met me there alone in the country. I considered it holy ground.
Dean Castronovo is a drummer who has played with Bad English, Journey, and Revolution Saints. He committed his life to Christ three years ago and has been sober ever since. I read an interview with Dean this week where he said,
“Being in the music industry, and being around the drugs and the alcohol that are prevalent, you've got to have something to hold onto. For me, that's a huge thing. I need that. I'm in my prayer closet doing my prayers ... because if I don't, I'm going to fall again. I'll fall right on my butt."
Do you have a secret place that you go and talk to your Heavenly Father? I want to encourage you, challenge you, beg you to make it a practice to get alone with God and talk to Him.
Jesus says, “Don’t show off publicly but approach God in private prayer.”
Then He continues by telling us the vocabulary to use as we approach a Holy God.
Babbling Pagans
“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:7-8)
The King James uses the phrase, “vain repetition.” Jesus directs us not to heap up words or treat prayer as a magic incantation.
Greek and Roman prayers were verbose and repetitious, repeating the name of a deity over and over again.
Jewish rabbis taught the longer the prayer, the more likely God would hear.
In I Kings 18 we see an epic showdown between the priest of the false god baal and Elijah. Elijah asked them to build an altar and call on their god and he will build an altar and call on the Lord. The God who answers by fire – He is God.
The pagan prophets of baal shouted, “Baal, answer us” from morning until noon. Elijah began to taunt them and they shouted louder, danced frantically, and cut themselves.
Scripture records that there was “no response, no one listened, no one paid attention.” (I Kings 18:29)
Elijah didn’t dance or cut himself or repeat himself:
“Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” (I Kings 18:36-37)
Elijah’s desire was for the people to know that God was reaching out to them. He didn’t have to pray for hours, mindlessly repeating words, because he knew that his God was listening.
I remember attending a funeral and finally leaning over to a friend and asking how many times were we going to repeat the Lord’s Prayer and he thought we would end up saying it over sixty times! People around said it like they were robots. It meant nothing.
There is nothing wrong with repetition. Any good teacher will tell you that repetition can burn words into your mind and your heart. But repetition can also make our hearts numb to the meaning of words.
Jesus cautions us not to be like the pagans who want to be heard for their many words.
In Acts 19, after Paul preached and many were saved, a riot broke out. For two hours straight, the people shouted in unison, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
When the Gettysburg battleground became a national cemetery, Edward Everett was asked to give the dedication speech. Abraham Lincoln was on hand as well and asked to say, “a few appropriate words.” Everett spoke eloquently for one hour and fifty-seven minutes. When he finished, the crowd roared with applause.
Lincoln stood up, adjusted his glasses and began, “The world will little note nor long remember…” Two minutes later, he was done. There was no applause because the crowd was stunned into silence by the gravity of his words.
The story is told that D.L. Moody was preaching and came to the end of his sermon. He turned and asked a man to pray. The man stood and begins to pray. And he prayed and prayed and prayed. Finally, Moody interrupted and said, “While Brother Smith is catching up on his prayers, let's turn in our hymn books to page ten and sing.”
Spurgeon wrote,
“Christian prayers are measured by weight, not by length. Most of the prevailing prayers have been as short as they were long.”
It’s been said, “In public, pray short. In private, pray long.”
Jesus said for us to approach prayer very differently. Why? “Because your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
If He already knows….
One of my favorite books on prayer is “If God Already Knows, Why Pray?” by Dr. Doug Kelly, my systematical theology professor in seminary.
I think that is the question that a lot of people have. If God already know what we are going to ask before we ask it, what good is it for me to tell Him something He already knows?
Scripture says that God knows us before we are born (Psalm 139:15-16), knows every hair on our head (Luke 12:7), and knows our thoughts before we think them (Psalm 139:2).
We don’t pray in order to inform God of any new information. We pray as children to a Father. Prayer keeps our hearts in touch with God. Prayer changes us and aligns us with His will. And God has conditioned our receiving things from Him through prayer. Prayer is the expression of our total dependence on God for everything.
We can trust that God hears us (Psalm 16). We can rely on the Holy Spirit to help us pray when we are at a loss for words (Romans 8:26). The writer of Hebrews encourages us to:
“…approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)
Let me make one caveat. If you are not a Christian, then you can have no confidence that God hears your prayers. Because our sins separate us from God, in our unredeemed state, we have no right to approach Him. But at the cross, our sins were paid for and the righteousness of Christ was applied to our account. He not only opened the door to the Throne room for you but He is praying for you, right now!
“He [Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)
Robert Murray McCheyne wrote:
“If I could hear Jesus praying in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no distance. He is praying for me.”
A Model Prayer
After outlining how not to pray and giving correctives, Jesus simply says, “This, then, is how you should pray.” (Matthew 6:9)
He doesn’t mean that we need to repeat these words verbatim. These words are a model for the type of prayer that God loves to hear.
In seminary, I had to study the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
What is prayer? “Prayer is the offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies.
What rule has God given for our direction in prayer? “The whole Word of God is used to direct us in prayer, but the special rule of direction in the form of prayer which Christ taught His disciples to pray, commonly called the Lord’s Prayer.
Over the next weeks or so, we will be diving deep into this prayer. And it is my deep desire that we learn to pray like this individually and corporately.
Would you stand and let’s say these words together:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
I’m going to ask you to begin every day for the next forty days with this prayer. Say it slowly and think about each part.
My prayer is as we begin to understand the prayer, not just with our head but with our hearts, that it would change us.
Video: The Lord’s Prayer (Jeff controls)
Time of Prayer
* Adoration
* Confession
* Thanksgiving
* Supplication
Prayer for Rod’s Trip
Communion
