When We Pray.... Part 1 Matthew 6:5-8

 November 12, 2023

Sermon Series: When We Pray…

Matthew 6: 5-8 How Then Shall We Pray?

Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church

I thought I might start a little series entitled: “When We Pray…”

I have been talking so much lately about prayer and the importance of prayer, and how I desire that we become known as a praying church, well, it occurred to me that maybe would look at some fundamentals when it comes to prayer and examine what scripture has to say about prayer. We are going to be spending the next four weeks in the Gospel of Matthew in the sixth chapter specifically.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with John Piper. John was the pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis for 33 years. John is probably best known for writing the book Desiring God. He also has a podcast and radio show by the same name. Anyway, one of the things that Pastor John is known for, is that whenever he begins a public discussion with someone, John always takes a couple of minutes to clarify and define the subject that they are discussing. I always thought that was wise because so many times, miscommunication happens when two people are using the same words to discuss something, but each party has a differing understanding of what the terms mean.

I thought that we should maybe do the same thing around prayer and our understanding of what prayer is and what it means to pray. I don’t mean to tell you what I think prayer is, or how it should be done. And I don’t mean that you should tell me what prayer means to you or how you pray. I think that for the life of a Christian, what should really matter, the only thing that matters is what Scripture tells us about prayer. And did Jesus have anything specific to say about the topic?

Fortunately for us, Jesus gave us very specific instructions on how to pray and what formula to follow when we pray. It was a technique that He modeled Himself for us.

Before we look at the text, can I read an excerpt from one of my commentaries? This is a book written solely on the Sermon on the Mount which is the fifth through to the end of the seventh chapters of the Gospel of Matthew.

This is a book from 1972 but fortunately, the Bible doesn’t go out of style for Believers and the Word of God is unchanging. Ony our grasp of it changes and the ways that we choose to apply it to our lives. The ways that we choose to apply it may or may not be influenced by culture, depending on the depth of our faith in the inerrancy of the Bible.

We must always be aware of the bias that we bring to Scripture when we read it. A good practice is to read a passage and ask yourself, “Does that say what I thought that it said?” In other words, am I letting Scripture and the Holy Spirit speak to me in a clear and unfettered way, or am I handcuffing or even hog-tying the verse by imposing a belief on the verse before I even give God’s Word a chance to speak to me.

This week, Marilyn shared with me a bias that she became aware of in her scripture reading. While preparing for the women’s Bible study, whose lesson this week was on Moses’ sister Miriam, Marilyn became aware of an image of Moses that she had developed growing up watching the movie “The Ten Commandments” starring Charleton Heston. When she had a chance to sit down and actually read the text and study it in detail, the Holy Spirit showed her some errors that she had been carrying in her mind about Moses. She became aware of how different Hollywood and the Bible presented Moses.

This is a great warning for those of you who are watching the series The Chosen. Be keenly aware of how that series and those writers, directors, and producers are subtly influencing your view of Scripture. For example, nowhere in the Bible does it mention that Matthew the tax collector was autistic or had a learning impairment.  Dallas Jenkins claims that it is just artistic license, and he is trying to present a more well-rounded and complete picture of the people described in the Bible. Well, let me tell you, we know exactly what we need to know about the apostles and disciples.

Also, you need to be aware that the company that is producing and distributing the series, Angel Studios, is a Mormon-owned company. You must guard against their beliefs creeping into the series. Just as Mel Gibson’s Roman Catholic veneration of Mary made its way into the Passion of the Christ, these filmmakers can not help but have their biases creep into their products. So, be on guard.

Let’s turn to today’s text in the sixth chapter of Matthew, who was not autistic. We are going to read through this entire section, including what is commonly referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer” Matthew 6:5-15 and then this morning, we will go back and examine the first three verses in more detail.

READ MATTHEW 6:5-15

PRAY

OK, right out of the gate I’m going to get controversial, we should not be referring to this as “The Lord’s Prayer”. Any idea why I would make such a statement that appears so obviously dumb on the surface? I mean come on Paul, who do you think you are to make such a statement, the church has called it the Lord’s Prayer for hundreds of years. Some of your Bibles may even have that name at the start of this section in your Bible.

I say that we shouldn’t call it the Lord’s Prayer because Jesus would have never prayed this exact prayer Himself. I think what the Bible interpreters mean to say when they refer to this as the Lord’s Prayer is, that this is the prayer that was received from the Lord. It actually should be called the “Disciple’s Prayer” because that is who the Lord gave it to. Once Jesus gave this example of a prayer, and that really is all that this prayer is meant to be, is a template or a formula for us to follow when we pray.

Alright, enough teasing, why shouldn’t we refer to this as The LORD’S Prayer? Primarily because of verse 12. In the original Greek the word that we translate into English as “debtor” is ŏphĕilĕtēs, (of-i-let´-ace). Which means a transgressor (especially against God):— or a debtor, someone who owes a debt to another, or simply a sinner. Because that is what we are as a sinner, we are indebted to God the Father for the wrong that we have done to Him. In our disobedience to God the Father, we have run up a debt, we owe the Father as Creator of the Universe, a debt for each sin that we commit.

How does that statement rub up against you? I owe? I owe the Father? Does that thought get your pride up? Or, does it drive you to your knees? How do you feel about the sin in your life?

Do you try to ignore it, push it to the dark corners of your mind, and let it sit there unseen in the darkness? That’s what the world does. The world pushes their sin aside and they don’t even think about it. Or, we like to use a sliding scale when we think of our sins. We are always comparing ourselves to someone else we know who is just a little (or a lot) worse than us.

We tell ourselves things like, “Well sure, I’m not perfect, but at least I can hold a job, unlike my brother-in-law.” Or, “Sure I get angry at my spouse sometimes, but at least I don’t hit her like my Dad used to hit my Mom!” But here’s the funny thing, God doesn’t grade on the Bell curve. He doesn’t compare His children and weigh their actions one against another to see who is good enough to spend eternity with Him.

Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”. All have sinned. All have incurred debt against God. Let me try and drive home the seriousness of this point.

You have probably heard other preachers in the past talk about sin as “missing the mark” as in living your life just slightly off-target. That is not what the Bible is saying when it uses the original term for sin. Let me explain.

This is from the Lexham Theological Wordbook, a text that is designed to help us understand the original text better by examining the original words in their original cultural context. Remember how I said earlier, we must guard against culture influencing how we read and interpret the Bible? Well, we must do the opposite when trying to understand what the Bible is saying to us, by examining how the original audience would have understood the words that the original authors and speakers would have used. What did their audience understand? I know this is a bit of a rabbit trail but stay with me because it is important.

 

The Greek word ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō) is a verb meaning to sin. It is the most general and common word for sin in the New Testament.

While the basic idea of “missing the mark” or “making a mistake” is behind the Jewish and Graeco-Roman use of the term it refers to semi-voluntary errors or mishaps which are not particularly blameworthy. That’s how secular culture in the days of Jesus would have understood the word hamartano.

However, the biblical and also general Second Temple Jewish (in other words, the religious folks of that day) would have used the verb markedly differently from Graeco-Roman usage. The biblical usage denotes deviation from God’s law in the form of either a specific act itself or a force in and of itself.

A deviation from God’s Law is represented by James 1:15 which states, “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

The usage of hamartano describing sin as a force in and of itself would be John 8:34 which says, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”

So, we see the biblical use of the word sin, has much more seriousness or Gravitas to the word than just “slightly missing the mark” Sin is not just, “Oh, I made a mistake, I guess I just need to try harder next time”. That is the cultural attitude towards sin.

The biblical attitude, and therefore this should be the attitude of all believers in Jesus Christ, should be that I have deviated from God’s Law and I have incurred debt against the Creator. How shall I pay off that debt?

 Well, the secret answer to that question is found in the word I just used to describe us, “Believer”. We need to believe.

We need to believe that God is a sovereign God and that He is the creator of the Universe. As such, He gets to create the rules for how we are to live our lives. It’s His game, He gets to make the rules. We don’t get to make up our own rules and try to apply them to our lives. We can, we just won’t get the results that we will have spent our whole lives pretending we will.

For example, let’s say that you are playing a game of baseball against another team. In your mind, your rules allow one point for every time you get to first base. During the game, you hit eight singles but you have no RBI’s or “runs batted in”, meaning you didn’t get a single player across home plate. However, the opposing team scored three home runs as their only hits in the game.

Well according to your rules and your score sheet, you won the game by a score of eight to three. But guess what, according to Abner Doubleday, the man credited with inventing the game of baseball and his rules, you lost by a score of three to nothing. You can argue with the umpire all you want and you can wave your score sheet in the air all you want, you can even yell at the ump and kick dirt on his shoes, but you still lose.

This will be the fate of many on the day of judgment. They will say, but I played the game this way, I was a good person, especially better than that hypocrite who lived down the road who called himself a Christian. I was nicer, I didn’t judge, and I didn’t try to make people feel bad about themselves by talking about “sin”. I played the game by my rules. And all they will hear on that day will be the words from Matthew 7:23, “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”.

Friends don’t let that be you. Put your pride aside. Become a Believer today.

Believe that God is Sovereign.

Believe that He has set the rules for life.

Believe John 3:26 when Jesus said, “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

Believe that Jesus paid in full your sin debt with the Father.

Believe that Jesus was raised from the dead after three days in a borrowed tomb and that fact was proof that Jesus was who He claimed to be and that the Father was satisfied with the offering that the Son presented to Him.

Believe that the Son is seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father awaiting His return to bring about the final days of judgment and the new Earth and the New Jerusalem.

Believe, that if you believe all these things, you too will be saved and become an adopted child of God the Father.

If you don’t believe, believe that you can be like the father in Mark chapter 9 in verses 23 to 24 when the agonized father of the demon-possessed boy cried out in anguish, “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

The Creator God has set the rules for the reward of eternal life. We cannot earn it, and we do not deserve it based on our merit, but we can have it, if, we only believe.

Just before, we get to the text for today, let’s look at one other critical fact about prayer. As Boice said in the introduction I read, sometimes we wonder how we should pray, what we should pray for, and even if we should pray at all. Let me repeat those questions: how we should pray, what we should pray for, and even if we should pray at all. We will answer the first question in a minute, and the second question in the next few sermons, but let’s answer the third question first.

Should we pray at all? The answer to that question will be rooted in your idea of who God is and what type of relationship God has with people. If you think that God is a cold and withdrawn entity that just sits back and is unmovable by the words of mankind, then no wonder you don’t pray. I wouldn’t waste my breath praying to a God like that either.

But fortunately for us, that is not how the Bible describes God, nor is it how God portrays Himself.

Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 43, page 590 in the Pew Bibles and follow along with me starting at verse three, and we will read all the way to the end of the chapter.

Isaiah 43:3-13 represents God speaking to His people through the faculties of the Prophet Isaiah with these words, “³ For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

I give Egypt for your ransom,

Cush ^j and Seba in your stead.

⁴ Since you are precious and honored in my sight,

and because I love you,

I will give people in exchange for you,

nations in exchange for your life.

⁵ Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bring your children from the east

and gather you from the west.

⁶ I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’

and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’

Bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the ends of the earth—

⁷ everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made.”

⁸ Lead out those who have eyes but are blind,

who have ears but are deaf.

⁹ All the nations gather together

and the peoples assemble.

Which of their gods foretold this

and proclaimed to us the former things?

Let them bring in their witnesses to prove they were right,

so that others may hear and say, “It is true.”

¹⁰ “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,

“and my servant whom I have chosen,

so that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am he.

Before me no god was formed,

nor will there be one after me.

¹¹ I, even I, am the Lord,

and apart from me there is no savior.

¹² I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—

I, and not some foreign god among you.

You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.

¹³   Yes, and from ancient days I am he.

No one can deliver out of my hand.

When I act, who can reverse it?”

 

Let me ask you, does that sound like a cold and distant God? This passage is full of first-person pronouns. Personal pronouns. Not cold and distant-sounding third-person pronouns. I, me, my, you: all personal pronouns.

When we accept Jesus, the Bible tells us that we become adopted sons and daughters of the King, the Father. We don’t have time to turn to them today, but they are in the notes, Romans 8:15, Ephesians 3:20, and Galatians 4:5 all speak of adoption. What kind of cold and distant God would use those terms? Adoption, family, heirs, and co-heirs with Christ are again very intimate terms to refer to someone else.

The Bible also tells us that God hears our prayers. Again, Yahweh is not a distant God whose attention needs to be gained through mindless repetition. Whenever I think of this fact and I can draw comfort from that, I think back to the Biblical account of the Great God Showdown on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 450 prophets of Asherah.

1 Kings 18 tells the complete story but some of my favorite verses are from 26B to 29,  “Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

²⁷ At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” ²⁸ So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. ²⁹ Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.”

Those taunts from Elijah, “Shout louder…perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy…” in the original language the word used to describe “busy” could also refer to a bowel movement. Potty humor in the Bible. I mean Elijah must have been quite a character. Elijah screaming out, “Hey shout louder, maybe Baal is thinking, or sleeping, or traveling, or maybe he’s busy in the bathroom.”

Sorry, maybe it’s a guy thing.

The important thing for us to keep in mind is that when we pray we can be confident that Yahweh is a personal God, He hears our prayers and He answers our prayers. His answers are: Yes, no, or not now, depending on His will.

 

All of that was just the introduction to today’s message. At this rate, we should be out of here by Tuesday.

 

OK, let’s finally get to today’s text. We have seen that Jesus would not have prayed this exact prayer because He was sinless, so therefore He would not need to ask the Father to forgive His debts.

So, let’s go back to Matthew 6 starting at verse 5 and look at the text a little more in-depth.

⁵ “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.”

Some people have thought and written foolish things about this text. What this does not mean is that there is no such thing as public prayer, or that there is no such thing as prayer with others or no prayer meetings. The practice of Jesus and the early Christians refutes these thoughts.

What these verses are concerned with is the tendency of men to pray to themselves and to other persons rather than to God. Don’t be so concerned with what others may think of you when you pray. That was one of the concerns that Jesus had. Don’t be that person who stands in the middle of the service and says a bunch of words to impress the person next to you or the pastor. That was what Jesus referred to about prayer in the synagogues. The part about the street corner is even worse in Hebrew than in English. In Hebrew, that word is also translated as “intersection”, not just street corner. So, picture someone standing in Olds at the corner of main street and Highway 27 holding up their arms as well as traffic in all directions, just to be seen praying. That’s the concept that Jesus is talking about.

It's a heart issue. Prayer must start with the right heart, not a wrong concern over one’s public image.

Speaking of the heart, your prayer must be addressed to God, not yourself or your neighbor. Don’t worry about what words you will say or if you might stumble. Prepare your heart to be in the presence of God when you pray.

If you are praying correctly, that is exactly where you should find yourself. In the presence of God. Don’t be like the nagging wife who is yelling out a long list of items as her husband is getting in the car to go to the grocery store.

Be aware of whose presence you are in. I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday and the concept of sacred spaces was brought up. Some people use that phrase a little too freely, but I think this is a perfect example of a sacred space. When we are preparing ourselves to pray, it would be fair to think of when Moses was standing before the burning bush and the LORD said to Moses to remove his sandals for he was standing on sacred ground.

How much deeper and more sincere would your prayer life be if you imagined having to remove your footwear, because you were in the presence of God before you began your prayer? Would you be so quick to whip out that shopping list of items that you want to ask God for? Would you prayer be full of words like “I”, and “we” and “our”, or would you be more likely to use phrases like Father, Abba, Lord, and keep a reverent tone the entire time you were praying?

Are you guilty of this, friends? I know I had to admit to myself that I have been guilty of this in the past. I feel I have been guilty of it on a Sunday morning or two as well. Being distracted by outside thoughts and not being “in the moment” or “in the presence of God” made those prayers insincere.

The great Bible Teacher and Evangelist, R.A. Torrey is quoted as saying, “we should never utter one syllable of prayer, either in public or in private, until we are definitely conscious that we have come into the presence of God and that we are actually praying to Him.”

This then begs the question, “How is it possible that a fallen sinful creature like myself, can enter the presence of the Holy and Just God to offer up anything, without being consumed by His judgment?”

We do it friends through the presence of Jesus. Hebrews 10:19 and 22 explains it this way, “¹⁹ Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

We can do it because our sins are covered by the righteousness of Jesus. His perfection covers our weaknesses and our temptations. Now here’s a hard truth for you. What that means is that prayer is for the Christian only. Because of His Holiness, God must turn His back on prayers offered up by the ungodly.

If they do not know Jesus, they are no different than the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. They can shout all they want, and they can try and rouse their sleeping God, but they will find that he is busy, too busy to answer.

You may once have been the worst sinner who ever walked the face of the earth, but if you turned from your ways through the acceptance of Jesus, you can have complete confidence that God is hearing your prayers and that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are interceding in your behalf. Isn’t that wonderful news?

But, apart from this approach, we back in the text of Matthew 6:5 that our prayers will be in vain and we will “have received our reward in full.” In other words, if you are praying for the sake of the approval of man, that’s all you are going to get folks.

For our second sermon point, we can move on to verse 6. Now, verse 6 of Matthew 6 is not to be taken literally. If you have a prayer closest then that is not a bad thing unless you turn it into an idol. What I mean by that is, and yes I have seen the movie “War Room”, when it becomes an idol, is when that becomes the only place that you can pray. Or that you can only speak to God when you are isolated from all the worldly distractions.

When it comes to my personal prayer life, I keep the words of the Apostle Paul in mind from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 which says, “¹⁶Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Now I just confessed something to you earlier that you need to keep in mind, to keep this verse in its proper balance. In the past, when I have been praying continuously, I have been guilty of doing it too flippantly. Not regarding the sacred presence of God enough before offering up those prayers.

Now, does that mean that God didn’t hear those prayers? Well, I said earlier, that as a Believer I have access to God through Christ. But maybe, because they were not offered in the proper level of seriousness and reverence, maybe the Son did not take them to the Father on my behalf.

Maybe those prayers that were offered up in that manner and if they were answered may not have been the best for me. That may have been like a parent giving in to a spoiled child having a tantrum in the grocery store. Is that parent really doing that child any favors?

That is also what is meant by the warning in verse 7 of Matthew 6. Do not be like the pagans and their useless repetitions. Again like the prophets of Baal.

I know the biblical account of the persistent widow, and I don’t have time to do a deep dive on that passage this morning, but what I see as the main difference in that account and what Jesus is warning against here is the “mindless repetition”. The widow offered her prayers with a mindful and respected petition, not just repetition.

Final point for this morning. “Father knows best”. Look at verse 8 of Matthew 6. “⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

 

Coming full circle from where we started this morning, namely the character of God. We have a loving Father, one who knows what is best for us, and sometimes, His discipline includes the delay or denial of our prayer requests.

 

Hebrews 12:5-7 also explains in a bit more detail. The author of Hebrews is actually quoting Proverbs 3:11-12, “⁵ And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,

and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

⁶ because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

 

I don’t think this needs a lot of further elaboration. It comes down to a heart issue and a trust issue.

 

CONCLUSION

Just a brief conclusion today, I think the three points from today set the tone for the rest of the series:

1. Do not pray hypocritically.
2. You are not limited to a “sacred space”.
3. Father knows best.

So much of Scripture is concerned with our heart issues and our levels of sincerity in our walk with Christ.