Things Jesus Wants Us to Know about Prayer

Prayer Places Us Before God

I’ve enjoyed looking at the Sermon on the Mount over the past few weeks. Jeremy pointed out that we needed to “not worry, be happy” and Austin challenged us to build our lives on the rock and not the sand. In this last message, I’m going to go back and fill in a bit from the middle. In Matthew chapter 6 we have Jesus address the three great devotional characteristics of Judaism – giving, prayer, and fasting. I’ve chosen to focus in on prayer this morning.

At the beginning of each year, we encourage one another to ‘Recalibrate’ our lives. It is a refresher on prayer, fasting, meditating, and Bible reading. These are all spiritual disciplines for the believer. God uses these disciplines to build us in the inner person. Jesus’ emphasis on giving, prayer, and fasting in the Sermon on the Mount reinforce the necessity of spiritual disciplines in our lives.

We don’t get gold stars for doing our spiritual disciplines. They are, most definitely, not “works of righteousness,” as it is sometimes said. They place us – body, mind, and spirit – before God. That is all. The results of this process are all of God, all of grace. Now, the opposite of grace is “works.” Works has to do with earning, and there simply is nothing we can ever do to earn God’s approval. Or God’s love.

The Christian’s Prayer

Our passage from Matthew 6 is often referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer”. It is true that He used it for our instruction, but it was for our benefit. Jesus did not have to pray for forgiveness since He never sinned but He gave it as a model for us.

Matthew 6:5–15 NIV

“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. 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. “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘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.’ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

It is very likely that you have seen this prayer hanging on a wall or heard it repeated.

Jesus Wants Us to Know These Things about Prayer

#1 - Pray!

Verses 5,6, 7, 9 – “When you pray” (3x) , “how you should pray”

The self-sufficient do not pray, the self-satisfied will not pray, the self-righteous cannot pray. No man is greater than his prayer life. - Leonard Ravenhill[1]

#2 - Clean up your motivations

The common theme that has drawn all the messages together from this series has been the emphasis of Jesus on the heart. Jesus is adamant about our hearts and here we see the same thing. The hypocrite prayed to be heard by the crowds. The pagan counts his words like a high school student trying to fill a 1000-word essay. God isn’t interested in the word count. It is your heart that counts.

#3 – Get a Better Picture of God

It is intimate and humble

In verse 6 Jesus encourages the believer to go into his/her inner chamber to pray. Go 1 on 1. Private prayer enables believers to pour out their hearts to God (your Father, who is unseen), express their true feelings, and listen in the quietness for God’s answer.[2]

Point out that Jesus wasn’t saying that prayer was exclusively private. He prayed publicly as well (Mt 14:18-19) and the disciples prayed corporately from the earliest days of the church (Acts 1:14).

In verse 9 Jesus begins with “Our Father”. This is a radical difference. Acknowledge that you are speaking to both an abba Father and a holy God. It begins with the word of intimacy, Father. In the Aramaic Jesus spoke, that would be ‘Abba’, Jesus’ own characteristic address to God. Nobody had ever addressed God like that. The word was used by little children of their daddy.[3]

#4 – Prayer Works

One of the most hysterical passages of the Bible is found in the book of Isaiah. God is speaking through his prophet, and He talks about the carpenter and blacksmith making objects and ultimately idols…

Isaiah 44:15–20 NIV

It is used as fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me! You are my god!” They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

He is asking the Israelites, “Are you serious? Are you going to make an idol and then speak to it and bow down to it?”

Now, here is something just as ridiculous. Some people don’t believe that prayer to the REAL GOD makes a difference! Life is just going to happen they believe. Here Jesus tells us (verse 6) that He will reward you. You and I are not speaking into a vacuum!

Prayer is not informing God of something he does not already know. Nor is prayer seeking to get God to change his mind. It is the adoring submission of the creature to the Creator, of the disciple to the Master. He knows. He cares. He is your Abba, your dear Father. So when you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name …’ (6:9).[4]

#5 – His Plan is Always the Best Plan

“Not my will, but Yours be done”. But did you know that it is God’s plan to be concerned with our practical needs. He knows that you need food, rest, and shelter.

#6 – Forgiveness Is a Big Deal

“Nothing superficially seems simpler or easier than forgiveness. Nothing if we look deeply is more mysterious or more difficult.” – Brooke Westcott[5]

Forgiving is the expected position of the believer. Verse 14-15 underline this point. Of course, it should be enough that Jesus told us to forgive but even secular research proves it. According to Harvard’s Dr. VanderWeele…

Practicing forgiveness can have powerful health benefits. Observational studies, and even some randomized trials, suggest that forgiveness is associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety, and hostility; reduced substance abuse; higher self-esteem; and greater life satisfaction. Yet, forgiving people is not always easy.[6]

I’ve frequently heard people criticize Christians about what so-and-so did to them, or what a ministry did to them decades ago. How ‘bout forgiving them? You! Forgive! Them! It is amazing what we see in the NT through the lives of the apostles and the way they accepted Paul.

It was to Paul an amazing thing, that he, the arch-persecutor, had been chosen as the missionary and the pioneer of Christ. It was not only that Jesus Christ had forgiven him; it was that Christ had trusted him. Sometimes in human affairs we forgive a man who has committed some mistake or who has been guilty of some sin, but we make it very clear that his past makes it impossible for us to trust him again with any responsibility. But Christ had not only forgiven Paul, He had entrusted him with His work to do. The man who had been the persecutor of Christ had been made the ambassador of Christ.

We must be as faithful and forgiving to others as Christ is to us![7]

Pray!

There is a lot more that could be said about this passage, but the greatest takeaway would be if we would simply pray. I hope that the 6 observations that we discussed would help take away any misconceptions that we’ve had about prayer –

1. Pray!

2. Clean Up Your Motivations

3. Get a Better Picture of God

4. Prayer Works

5. His Plan is Always the Best Plan

6. Forgiveness is a Big Deal

I want to conclude with an encouragement to become a person of prayer. Jesus advised us not to seek recognition by the way we pray, but prayer does get noticed… John Ashcroft tells this story about the impact of his praying father.

Many kids wake up to the smell of coffee brewing or the sound of a rooster crowing. My wake-up call was my father’s passionate praying. Sometimes I’d ease downstairs and join him. One knee was usually raised, so I’d slip in underneath, shielded by his body as he pleaded for my soul.

I never caught Dad praying for our happiness. He realized that the pursuit of happiness for its own sake is a frustrating, disillusioning, often futile effort. Happiness usually hides from those addicted to its sugar, while it chases after those caught up in something more lasting than momentary excitement.

I never heard him pray for a bigger house, car, or bank account. Instead, he prayed that our hearts would be ignited and inspired to do things of eternal consequence. “Turn our eyes from the temporal, the physical, and the menial,” he prayed, “and toward the eternal, the spiritual, and the noble.”

My father never pressured us toward achievement. He knew that the push had to come from inner reserves, not outward designs. He simply dangled before us the possibilities. Thanks to his example, we sometimes took the bait.

—John Ashcroft, Lessons from a Father to His Son(Nelson, 1998)[8]

Jesus said, “When you pray”….Pray!

[1]Bruce B. Barton, Matthew, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996), 113. [2]Bruce B. Barton, Matthew, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996), 113. [3]Michael Green, The Message of Matthew: The Kingdom of Heaven, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 100. [4]Michael Green, The Message of Matthew: The Kingdom of Heaven, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 99. [5] John Stott, The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott, ed. Mark Meynell (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018). [6] https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/the-power-of-forgiveness [7]Leadership Ministries Worldwide, Practical Illustrations: 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide, 2003), 55–56. [8]Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 305–306.