Prayer
Sermon Transcript
0:00:14.0
I think for most of us, prayer is one of the most difficult, if not mysterious, spiritual disciplines in the Christian life. I say that because prayer does not come naturally to us. Oh, it may come naturally to you, but I’ll be the first one to confess this morning this it doesn’t come naturally to me. In fact, every time I try to do better at prayer and spend more time in it, seen and unseen forces work against my best intentions. Now, do I have a witness in the room? Anybody who’s willing to shout amen or “oh, me”? You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? If you were to ask me, “How’s your prayer life,” I might feel a twinge of guilt. And you might as well. Philip Yancey…I appreciate his writing because he’s so honest. He’s so authentic and real. He kind of cuts through all the stuff. And he says this about our prayer lives. He says, “Life today conspires against a regular satisfying prayer life.” And it does, doesn’t it? He goes on to describe why. He says, “Add to modern hindrances the barrage of noise in an information society like chat rooms, mobile phones, television, text messages, iPods, Blackberry internet devices…” For the kids we would say Xbox, Wii and a whole host of other things. And he says, “These create the kind of noise that simply drowns out prayer.” He goes on to say, “In airports, I see busy people walking around with Bluetooth earpieces permanently attached to their ears waiting for the next interruption.” Boy, he’s got us pegged, doesn’t he? “Of course, all the electronic devices have an on/off switch, but somehow they’re offerings seem more productive or enticing than sitting quietly in conversation with God.” And Yancey is dead on, isn’t he? Life conspires against a satisfying prayer life.
0:02:39.1
Back during Jesus’s time, His disciples were no doubt schooled in the Jewish practice of prayer. But there was something about Jesus’s prayer life that captivated their attention. Luke tells us that Jesus was praying at an undisclosed place. And when the disciples found out about it, it prompted one of the disciples to come to him and say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” I’ve always found it fascinating that nowhere in the New Testament, nowhere in the Gospels does it ever record a time or a place where the disciples said, “Lord, teach us to teach.” And yet Jesus was a master teacher. But there was something so compelling about His prayer life that it caused the disciples to come to Him and say, “We want to learn from You. Would You teach us how to pray?” Have you ever wanted somebody to teach you how to pray? How to have a conversation with God. Not a monologue where you bring all of your wish list to Him, but a dialogue with the Almighty. Wouldn’t that be a fascinating thing to learn how to do?
0:03:47.3
Well, we’ve come to that place in our study of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus lands upon the topic of prayer. And He dedicates a good bit of editorial space in His sermon to the subject of prayer. And we go into this message today, verses 5-15 of chapter 6, in the larger context of chapter 6 verses 1-18 where last week we introduced these three spiritual disciplines that Jesus addresses in these verses, the pillars of piety we called them. Last week we looked at the spiritual discipline of giving. That is our charitable acts of kindness to the poor. And we learned some things about that last week. Now, we talk about the spiritual discipline of prayer. And the outline of the text is real simple this morning. So if you’re into memorable devices, just remember how not to pray, verses 5-8, and how to pray in verses 9-15. And that’s how Jesus addresses it. So let’s go with that ourselves as well.
0:04:48.3
First, He gives us two reasons or two ways not to pray. He starts in the negative realm. And first He says don’t pray like the hypocrite. He picks up on that theme about the pious hypocritical show of religion and applies it to our prayer life. And He says in verse 5, “And when you pray…”—again, not if you pray, but when you pray—“you are not to be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” And by “reward in full” what He means is if your prayer life is all about a spiritual performance, then here is your reward. It’s the applause that you will receive from men. But you're gonna have to decide whether you want the applause of men or the applause of heaven here.
0:05:47.4
Now, back in the 1st century the Jews practiced this discipline of prayer. And they were very regimented about it. They would pray at least three times a day in three hour increments- at 9:00, then again at noon, and then again at 3:00 in the afternoon. And we see even in the Muslim faith today this disciplined, regimented approach to prayer. Almost up to six times a day the Muslims pray, beginning at dawn and ending in the latter hours of the night. In the 1st century the pious Jews, the religious leaders, would try to show up in the populated places of the city and of the synagogues at those appointed times of prayer because for them it was all about a spiritual performance. And they wanted people to see how spiritual they were. And so they would make sure that they were in those populated places at the appointed times of prayer. And Jesus rebuked them for that because they had turned a private act of worship into the public display of piety. And it was all about them.
0:06:59.2
And, in fact, He turns the corner in verse 6 and He says, “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father, who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” He says don’t pray like the hypocrites. Don’t turn it into a spiritual show. Down with showmanship, He says. And He’s not against public praying. Jesus isn’t against that. But He is against turning the disciplines of prayer into show time.
0:07:32.3
I was thinking this week that our prayers and our prayer life ought to be like icebergs in Alaska. If you’ve ever been to that beautiful part of the country or you’ve seen pictures of icebergs in Alaska, you know that what you see above the waterline is only about 10% of the iceberg. But below the waterline, in the secret place of the depths of the ocean, is where about 90% of that iceberg resides. And our prayer life ought to be like that. There’s nothing wrong with public praying, but our public praying should be just a little bit of the overall discipline of prayer in our lives. In fact, I have found over the years in ministry that the power you might experience, the power of the Holy Spirit in public ministry, is directly related to the time that someone might spend in the secret place, in the quiet place, away from spotlights and the platforms and all of that. And this was true in Jesus’s life. By the way, do you have a secret place where you meet with your heavenly Father? A quiet closet away from all the distractions, the cell phones, the internet, away from the hustle and bustle of our modern society. Do you have a secret quiet place that you’ve carved out a time and, yes, a place, a room in the house? You might even have to go to the bathroom in your house to find just a quiet place where you can lock the door and just be alone with your heavenly Father. But do you have a place like that?
0:09:13.0
I received an email this week from a friend of mine who was apparently part of an Eagle Scout ceremony. And he shared with me some of the challenging words that he said to these new Eagle Scouts. Listen to this. He says, “All leaders will be observed in private when they least expect it. All leaders will eventually get caught doing something they presumed was done in secrecy.” He says to these young men, “What do you want to get caught doing?” He says, “Recall the prophet Daniel. He got caught on his knees praying to his holy God.” I love that picture. And then he says, “In Matthew 6 Jesus instructs us to pray in private. To go to our inner room, to close the door and pray in secret.” And then he says to these young Eagle Scouts, “Pray often enough to get caught.” Isn’t that a great thing to say to Eagle Scouts? And it’s a great thing to say to you and to me. We ought to pray in our secret place, in our quiet place, often enough to get caught. And this is exactly what Jesus did.
0:10:22.4
In Mark 1:35-36 we get one of those glimpses into the spiritual disciplines of our Lord. And I love those glimpses throughout the scriptures. Oh, we have maybe a dozen or more times when we find Jesus praying and sometimes in a public way. But we get these little glimpses into His spiritual life. And Mark 1:35-36 gives us a glimpse. It says, “And in the early morning while it was still dark…” Now, I know that some of you never see that time of day. You’re just not a morning person. But just understand that spiritual people, in the early morning while it was still dark…I’m joking, all right. But this was the practice of Jesus. I don’t know if He was a morning person or not, but He got up early in the morning. “He arose,” it says, “and He went out and departed to a lonely place,” it says, “and He was praying there.” This was the habit of His life. And you say, “Well, He’s the Son of God and the savior of the world. He’s the creator of the universe.” He still found it necessary to get alone in a quiet place before the business of His day began. And it’s always interesting when you study the scriptures. You never find Jesus in hurry. But He was busy, wasn’t He, fulfilling His Father’s purpose and His mission. But He found it was necessary to get up before everybody else did while it was still dark and to find that lonely place, that quiet place, that secret place, and have a conversation with His heavenly Father. I would have loved to have been a part of those conversations just to hear what He said.
0:12:05.9
Verse 36 says, “And Simon and his companions hunted for Him, and they found Him.” The implication is, well, now the sun has arisen and the day has started. And they’re wondering where is Jesus. They say to Him, “Everyone is looking for you.” He got caught praying. And what a great thing to get caught doing, having a conversation with your heavenly Father in that secret place.
0:12:31.3
I learned a little bit about the secret place during my single years. Cathryn and I, when we got married I was 31 years old, which meant that the vast majority of my 20s, that decade, I was single and alone a lot of times. Before I went into the ministry, I was a regional sales manager for a medical supply company responsible for an eight-state region. I was 25, 26 years old and traveled a lot- two or three cities a week, in and out of airports, in and out of lonely hotel rooms. And I discovered in that loneliness that I could either be alone with my own thoughts, which is kind of boring to be honest with you, or I could learn to get alone in the secret place with God and take advantage of those times. And I really think during those single years, the better part of that decade God forced me into my closet. And my heart began to long for that quiet place and that secret place. I got married to a beautiful wife. We have two beautiful kids. I wouldn’t trade them for the world. But you know what I’m finding many years later? I have to be more intentional about finding that quiet place and that secret place because life is noisier. Life is busier. And it doesn't necessarily happen when I come to the office, because I’m a task-driven kind of guy. And I get to the office and it’s go, go, go and go, go, go. So oftentimes even in my sermon preparation I’ve got to find a place off campus away from even the business of ministry life here on a campus like Immanuel Bible Church just to get alone. And you’re gonna have to be as intentional to find that quiet, secret place away from the distractions of your world to begin cultivating your heart for God. Don’t pray like the hypocrites. It’s so contrary to what they do because for them conversation with God was a public thing. Jesus says, “Go into your private place and cultivate time with Him.”
0:14:34.7
Secondly, don’t pray like the heathen, He says. Let’s read on in verse 7. He says, “When you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” If the problems with the hypocrite is insincerity and it’s all a public show, the problem with the heathen is just mindless repetition. Jesus wants, God wants real communication with us, not vain repetition. It’s not about saying the right words or a special kind of words or kinds of prayers. That’s what the heathen do. That’s what the pagans do, the unbelievers. They treat prayer sort of like an incantation, a babbling or maybe a magic spell where if I just say the right words then that cosmic genie in the sky will be compelled to grant me my three wishes. That’s the way unbelievers pray. It’s not about pious performance. It’s not about flowery words. It’s about having a real and authentic conversation with our heavenly Father.
0:15:43.9
I remember years ago when I was in seminary and I was interning at a church in the Dallas area and kind of overseeing a single adult ministry. We had a number of small group Bible studies. And, well, maybe you’ve been to one. Kind of a typical Bible study where you study the scriptures together and kind of circled up in a room. And then you have a prayer time. And then we do what we always loved to do, and that was eat. But I remember one girl in our Bible study. Let’s just call her Sally. And she was a new believer. And she was pretty real and open and authentic and reminded us of how intimidated she was about the prayer time and just told us, “You know, I just don’t feel led to kind of participate in that. I’ll just kind of be quiet over here.” And we were fine with that. The rest of us prayed. But I remember the day that Sally broke her silence and she jumped into the prayer time. And it didn’t sound like some of our prayers, you know, “Oh my gracious beneficent creator of the universe, we beseech thee that you might bestow upon us thy gracious loving kindness.” It didn’t sound like that. She just said, “God, this is Sally.” And it was silent in the room because she was so real. It was about real conversation. God, this is Sally. And I…” And she began to pour out her heart. That’s what Jesus is getting at here. It’s not about a pious performance. It’s not about flowery words and the right words. In fact, He says don’t pray like the heathen because your Father in heaven already knows what you need and what you’re gonna ask for. He says that in verse 8. Did you see it? “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” In other words, it’s not about saying the special words. It’s about having a conversation with our heavenly Father.
0:17:33.3
Verse 8 raises the question, why pray? I mean, really, why should we pray if our Father in heaven already knows what we need? And even asking that question reveals how little we really understand about prayer and the desire of the God of this universe to have a relationship with us. We pray for the same reason that I want to have conversation with my kids, even though as a parent I may know exactly what they’ve done, where they’ve been—because I have spies out there—I know where they’ve been. I know what they’ve been doing. I know what they need more often than to. But I still want my kids, especially when they were younger, just to crawl up into daddy’s lap and just share their heart with me. And that’s what our heavenly Father wants. He wants to have a conversation with His kids. And what an incredible invitation that is, friends. As long as prayer to me is a spiritual duty I must perform, I don’t get around to it very much. But when I desire to hang out with my heavenly Father as much as He desires to hang out with me, then I wake up in the morning and my first thought in the morning is, I can’t wait to get to my quiet place. And if I have to get up 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour before everybody else, I run (0:19:00.1) to that place where I can hang out with my Father and just have a honest conversation with Him about the day that is before me.
0:19:08.9
So how to pray? Not like the heathen, not like the hypocrite. God desires real conversation, honest communication. But then in verse 9 He turns the corner and He tells us how to pray. He gives us a pattern for prayer. He gives us what is commonly referred to as the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is known worldwide. I think almost everybody has heard the Lord’s Prayer and most of us know it by memory. It’s only 66 words, and sometimes the most powerful things are the briefest, right? Like the Emancipation Proclamation. What is it, 260 some words? Well, the Lord’s Prayer is only 66 words. In fact, let’s say it together. You may not know it by memory, so we’ll give you a little help on the screen here. But let’s recite this together. (0:20:00.0) “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debt as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” It’s a beautiful, magnificent prayer. And it’s a model, it’s not a mantra. It’s not something we’re to recite and chant in a meaningless kind of way. Nothing wrong with saying it, but it’s a pattern for prayer. Think of it as prayer training wheels. As we learn to pray, this prayer helps us get started. But the idea is that we learn how to pray and to have conversations with our heavenly Father without the training device. That we ride into conversations with God and it becomes normal and natural to us rather than something that’s rote and perfunctory.
0:21:09.0
We don’t have time this morning…and I have to resist the urge to really get deep on every word and every phrase, so I’m just gonna kind of skip across the mountain peaks here and give you a little way to think through the Lord’s Prayer here. First of all, it encourages us to make the right approach, doesn’t it? And I want you to think of this. Those of you who are golfers out there, you know that the approach shot to the green means everything. It’s the difference between a birdie, a par, or a bogie. If you’re a tennis player, there is something called the approach shot to the net. And if you need the right approach shot, you can get to the net and you're in a better position to score a point against your opponent. Pilots know when they come into an airport they talk about something called the final approach. This isn’t the final approach. This is the initial approach. But it sounds something like this in verse 9. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.” Notice the first word is a plural pronoun, reminding us that the Christian life is not a solo journey. But whatever we do in the Christian life, whether we pray or pursue the spiritual disciplines, whatever it is, we do it in community with one another. That’s why we’re working so hard here at Immanuel to get off the corner and out into the community to connect us in community with one another in geographical places, in your neighborhoods and in places where you intersect life. We do this in community with one another. And all throughout the prayer you’ll find plural pronouns reminding us the Christian life is not a solo journey, friends.
0:22:43.4
And we pray to our Father. Now, if you were sitting there in the 1st century, your ears would have perked up a little bit, because the Jews for centuries did not know this kind of familiarity with God. In fact, they revered the name of God so much that they wouldn’t even write it on a piece of papyrus. And yet Jesus, in this teaching on prayer, verses 5-15, He uses the name “Father” six times. And if we were just sitting there on the hillside overlooking the Galilean sea, we would be wondering whether this was a new teaching He was giving to us. We do not pray to an impersonal force. We pray to our heavenly Father who wants to have a conversation with us.
0:23:30.6
And even as I say that, some of you are thinking about your relationship with your earthly father. And maybe it wasn’t a good one. Or maybe you were unfathered. That’s a term somebody used with me in conversation this week. It’s a John Eldredge term, unfathered. Maybe some of you say, “Yeah, I don’t know my father. I was unfathered in this life.” And so you bring all of that hurt and all of that baggage into the first two words here in the prayer, and you kind of check out. I want you to lean into this and understand that your heavenly Father is the most perfect heavenly Father. And you can trust Him to have a conversation with Him.
0:24:12.8
We pray to our Father who is in heaven. Heaven is the Lord’s throne. The earth is His footstool. Yes, He is omnipresent. He is in all places at all times, but the scripture describes heaven as a perfect place where God dwells, where He resides. And as my praying catapults me into the place where God resides, He changes my perspective. When I look at the things on this earth that I’m dealing with from day to day from heaven’s perspective, it changes my perspective, doesn’t it. And then He says, “Hallowed be thy name.” God’s name is holy. The Jews understood that. But there is this tension in the approach between the familiarity of father and the holiness of God’s name and how those two come together.
0:25:01.3
During the John Kennedy years in the White House, a LIFE Magazine photographer snapped a shot in the Oval Office of President Kennedy behind the desk and little John John down beneath playing in the cubby hole. And that picture captivated the imagination of Americans. It still does today. It’s a fabulous picture. The combination of the center of power on the planet, the Oval Office, and this little boy who has access to the most powerful man on the planet. Why? Because he calls him papa. He calls him daddy. And that’s the idea here in our approach. Our Father who is in heaven, Your name is holy and revered. And I am stepping into the Holy of Holies as I approach my heavenly Father.
0:25:54.2
So you make the right approach. Secondly, you align your heart with His. Let’s read on. “Thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Now, this part of the prayer is really quite challenging for anybody anywhere, but especially for people in Washington, D.C. Because I have discovered in my 2 ½ years here that this is not only one of the most educated places…somebody told me when I came here that it’s the highest concentration of Ph.D.’s found anywhere in the country. I’ve met some of you who have two or three posthole diggers. I mean, it’s just amazing how educated this place is, right. But it’s also the highest concentration of type A people I’ve ever seen. I mean, people come to Washington, D.C., to get things done. You come with an agenda. You come with goals and aspirations and a plan. And that’s all right. I’m kind of wired that way. I’m a goal-setting, task-driven, type A, high D racehorse kind of personality. And everything about that…and that’s just the way God’s wired me, and it’s the way God has wired some of you. But everything about that conspires against the kind of praying that says, “Thy kingdom come and thy will be done.” Because I want to pray, and some of you want to pray, “My kingdom come and my will be done in heaven as it is in my little part of the earth here.” And this is about the rule and reign of Jesus Christ. “Thy kingdom come.” Yes, we could speak in an eschatological sense- the coming millennium, the thousand year reign of Jesus Christ. But it’s also about His rule and reign in our hearts as we await the millennial kingdom. Jesus doesn’t want to just be resident in our life, friends. He deserves to president of your life, the CEO, calling the shots, setting the agenda, establishing the priorities. “Thy kingdom come,” we pray. And we pray, “Thy will be done.” Jesus taught us to pray this way, and He modeled it in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before He was crucified. In His humanity He looks at His Father and says, “If there is any other way that we can accomplish the mission, I’m open to that. But not My will be done, but Thine be done.” And on He went to the cross.
0:28:20.7
I’ve learned over the years that His will is better than my will. In fact, Romans tells us in Romans 12 that God’s will is good, and it’s acceptable, and it’s perfect. But my will kind of gets in the way, doesn’t it. And so does yours. This prayer changes that. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Whatever heaven’s agenda is, Father, establish that priority and that agenda in my life. And I humbly submit all of my goals, dreams, plans, aspirations to You. And that’s a good exchange. Trust me. Trust me. It is.
0:29:04.2
Number there, we make the ask. We move from a section of the prayer that is all about God. Now the focus becomes on us, appropriate so after we have made the right approach and we have aligned our hearts with His. Then we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us for our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” There are three specific asks in here. Give us, forgive us, and deliver us. Prayer at some level is asking and receiving, certainly not before we make the right approach and align our hearts. In fact, there are two extremes that we can go to here. One is to make prayer all about asking and to bring our wish list to our cosmic genie or our ATM machine and try to invoke Him that way. Or maybe you’re insecure and you say, “Well, who am I to ask anything of the God of this universe?” Both extremes are wrong. We’re to come to our heavenly Father, yes, with our requests, even though He knows exactly what we need. Matthew 7:7, a little bit later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Ask as it shall be given unto you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” Are you asking? Are you seeking? Are you knocking?
0:30:18.8
Jesus told a couple of parables that talked about persistence in our praying. And this is all about asking. “Give us” speaks of our material needs. “Forgive us” speaks of our spiritual needs. “Deliver us” speaks of the moral battles that we face every day as we wage war against the world, the flesh and the devil. Some see even a wink and a nod to the trinity here- the Father, who providentially cares for our material needs; the Son, who purchased our redemption and our spiritual needs for forgiveness at the cross; and the Holy Spirit, who assists us in our battles with the devil. It’s a magnificent part of the prayer there.
0:31:01.1
And then finally, we’ll stop where you started. “For thine is the kingdom and the power and glory forever. Amen,” Jesus says. Eugene Peterson paraphrased the Old and New Testament in something called The Message. And here is how he paraphrases the Lord’s Prayer. I like these refreshing renditions of it. He says, “Our Father in heaven, reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best— as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty!” And then he concludes, “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Isn’t that a great way to think about the Lord’s Prayer? And let’s do what we’ve been talking about this morning. Let’s conclude our time together with our heads bowed and in an attitude of prayer and praying as Jesus taught us. Let’s do that together.
0:32:24.2
“Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us of our debt as we also forgive those who have debts against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
0:32:56.8
What a great time to come to the Lord’s Table this morning, and we’re gonna do that together as a community of passionate Christ followers. I think of that portion of the prayer where Jesus said, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” And my mind transports to the last week of His life the night before he was crucified there in Garden of Gethsemane, where even the Son of God, the savior of the world, the creator of the universe, submitted His will to the Father’s will. And as we come to the Lord’s Table, it’s a memorial service. It’s a time of remembrance. It’s a time to remember His death upon the cross. It’s a time to remember “forgive us our debts.” Isn’t it interesting that the Bible equates sin to a financial term like “debt.” Paul says in Colossians that at the cross He canceled the certificate of debts against him. I don’t know what kind of debt you're in today. But if you’re like the average American, it’s a lot of debt. Wouldn’t you love somebody to come along and cancel the certificate of debt- your mortgage debt, your credit card debt. We had piled up sin debts higher than Montana sky, and that was canceled at the cross of Christ. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, the Bible says. So as the men come forward and we remember this event that punctuated history, the cross of Jesus Christ, if you’re believer in Jesus Christ we invite you to the Lord’s Table. But if you’re here this morning and you're still investigating this thing called Christianity, this is an object lesson for you to sit back and watch and ponder and consider the elements, the body of our Lord that was broken on the cross represented by bread, and the juice, His blood spilled for the remission and forgiveness of our sins. It’s a gospel presentation, even as we remember what our savior did for us. Let’s pray together.
0:35:08.5
Father, thank You so much for Your plan of salvation. Thank You for the mission and for Your Son and our savior who was willing to complete the mission and go all the way to the cross. Father, even as we’ve learned to pray, we come to You with great reverence in our hearts, recognizing that we are entering into a holy place, a place of Your residing, a place called heaven, a place of our home and our citizenship as believers in Christ. And we thank You that we can call You Father and we can enter into this family relationship with You through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that You would be honored and blessed and lifted up high as we remember your death for us. It’s in Christ’s name we pray, amen.
0:36:33.5