“PREPARATION” Matthew 6:5-8
FBCF – 2/7/21
Jon Daniels
INTRO – Old joke – Airplane w/ serious engine trouble was rapidly losing altitude & falling toward the earth. Pilot contacted nearest control tower: “Pilot to tower, pilot to tower – We are 400 miles from land, 800 feet above water, & losing fuel quickly. Please advise, please advise!” Next transmission was loud & clear: “Tower to pilot, tower to pilot – repeat after me: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”
Begin a series today entitled, “Pray Like This.” Will focus on Lord’s Prayer for the next several weeks.
But, just as with many other important activities, preparation for prayer is very important.
- Farmer cultivates & prepares his field before he ever plants a seed. Break up crusty, dry soil so that water & nutrients can get down to the roots where they’re needed.
- Athletic teams practice & prepare to meet their opponents on the field & on the court. And even before they get on the field or the court to practice, they’ve been in the weight room & on the track conditioning & preparing.
- Military forces spend massive amounts of time drilling & preparing to meet the enemy. Intelligence is gathered, tactics are formulated, war games are played out, all to prepare to fight & defeat the enemy.
- We spend the formative years of childhood & adolescence preparing ourselves for the demands & responsibilities of adulthood – college or trade school preparing for jobs & careers, developing friendships & relationships, possibly one that will lead to marriage.
Preparation is a critical part of the success & fulfillment of any meaningful activity, & that certainly includes the activity of prayer in the life of the Christ-follower.
EXPLANATION – Matthew 6:5-8
Prayer is as basic & as essential to our spiritual lives as Christ-followers as breathing is to our physical lives as human beings. It’s our lifeline to the very throne room of God.
- Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
o AMP Bible – “Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace [that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor] with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].”
- Multiple occasions that Jesus taught about prayer & modeled prayer:
o Mark 1:35 – “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house & went out to a solitary place where He prayed.”
o Matthew 7:7 – “Ask, & it will be given to you; seek, & you will find; knock, & the door will be opened to you.”
o John 14:14 – “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
So right here in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount – His most important sermon – Jesus gives His most important teaching on this most important activity that we must practice – the activity of prayer. These 4 verses preceding the Lord’s Prayer can be summed up in these 2 statements:
- You can't be fake; you gotta be real – v. 5-6
- Your prayers can’t be hollow; you gotta trust God – v. 7-8
APPLICATION – Preparation is an important aspect of our prayer lives.
To prepare to pray:
Deal with Hypocrisy – v. 5 - There are a couple of times in Jesus’ earthly life that we see Him really show His disdain for certain things:
- One was when money changer were defiling the Temple – Matthew 21:12-13 – “…‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
- The other was when He was denouncing the hypocrisy of the scribes & Pharisees in Matthew 23:1-36. He lays those guys out – “hypocrites” – “blind guides” – “snakes” – “brood [sons] of vipers”
Pretty obvious that Jesus hates hypocrisy, the sin of play-acting; of using religion & religious practices to cover up sin that’s in our lives. Greek word for “hypocrite” literally means “an actor who wears a mask.” The mask conceals who they really are but shows who they want the audience to see.
And in our preparation for prayer, hypocrisy needs to be dealt with. The hypocrisy that Jesus is referring to here is the actions of those who want to pray in public so others will THINK that they are really spiritual. John MacArthur says that those who are praying this way are praying from a motive of “sinful self-glory,” & that’s one of the most serious perversions of what prayer is ultimately supposed to be all about – that is glorifying God as Jesus said in John 14:13 – “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
Jesus is not condemning public prayer. Nothing wrong w/ praying in public. But there’s a lot wrong w/ praying in public to try & make others think you’re right w/ God when you know in your heart that you are definitely NOT right w/ God. Before we ever utter a word of prayer in public, we need to make sure that we have been spending time w/ God in prayer in private, getting our heart right before Him. Which leads to the next point:
Designate a Place – v. 6 – Where is “your room”, “your closet” (KJV), “your most private room” (AMP)? Again, Jesus is not speaking against praying in public. There are times when public prayer is appropriate & needed & essential. But His point is that we must have a faithful, consistent private prayer life in order to grow in our relationship w/ Him. One of the best ways to do that is to have a designated place where you consistently go to commune & fellowship w/ Him in prayer. This is not a command that has to be taken literally – you don’t have to actually go into an actual closet in your home to pray, although there’s certainly nothing wrong w/ that either. But the principle of dedicated, passionate, fervent, private prayer is one that we find all throughout the Bible.
- May not be a room in your home. Could be in your car/truck when commuting to work.
o Vicki every day when she’s driving to keep grandkids.
o Traffic on I-20 when I was on staff at FBCJ
Practical reasons to designate a place:
- Makes you be intentional
o Go to gym to workout, restaurant to eat, church to worship
- Shows that you believe that private prayer is important – Important enough for you to dedicate space for it.
- Develops the necessary intimacy w/ the Lord
o Free from distractions
o Can be yourself
Colossians 4:2 – “Devote yourselves to prayer…” – Designating a place helps you to do that.
Don’t Use Meaningless Words – v. 7 – The 2 words in the ESV, “empty phrases,” (“vain repetitions” – KJV) are actually one word in the Greek – battalogeo – to stammer; to say the same thing over & over again.
Jesus not telling us that we can’t repeat prayer requests & needs to Him. You don’t pray for your spouse once & never again – kids, grandkids, etc.
- George Shepherd coming home from hospital & rehab today. How many times have hundreds, maybe thousands of people prayed for him over & over again over these last few months?
The emphasis here is not on the length of the prayer, but on the attitude of the heart in prayer. Mindlessly repeating words & incantations as if you are praying is senseless & useless.
- Pagans believed their gods had to be awakened or prodded to hear them.
- Buddhists spin prayer wheels & think that every time the wheel turns, prayers are being sent to their god.
- Catholics believe that a lit candle will keep their prayers going to God after they’ve left the church.
- Even the Lord’s Prayer given here in this passage is mindlessly repeated by sports teams before & after games. That’s not true prayer & has nothing to do w/ the success of the team on the field or court.
Length of prayer: Some believe that they have to pray long, elaborate prayers in order to REALLY pray. Again, not true. Nothing wrong w/ long prayers (John Wesley prayed for 4 hours every morning). But sometimes, an honest, heartfelt, Spirit-led prayer may be nothing more than whispering of a name to the Lord, or just saying the name, “Jesus,” or the statement, “Help me, Lord,” is the most sincere prayer you can pray. That’s the “effectual, fervent prayer” of a righteous person that accomplishes much (James 5:16).
Depend on God – v. 8 – God wants to spend time w/ us, to hear from us, His children. He longs to fellowship w/ us, to commune w/ us, to speak to us, more than we could ever want to be w/ Him. We don’t come to God to badger Him, to wake Him up, or to inform Him of our needs. He already knows our needs & we can depend on Him to meet those needs.
CONCLUSION – So, what’s your takeaway from this message today?
- Is there some hypocrisy in your life that you need to deal with?
- Do you need to designate a place for regular, consistent prayer?
- Have you just been going through the motions in your prayer life, just using meaningless, repetitious words?
- Do you need to depend on God more?
Or maybe you need to pray the first prayer that everyone needs to pray – pray to receive Jesus!
