Let's talk about prayer

The teaching, examples continue

Who are you trying to please with

Acts of righteousness that you are already doing

Deeds

Giving

Seek to please God vs. please God

Seek applause of God vs. applause of man

I believe we ended with a quote by Trapp:

“Oh, let us rather seek to be good than seem to be so.”

So may we start with another quote before moving on today

Clarke says:

“We should ever remember the eye of the Lord is upon us, and that He sees not only the act, but also every motive that led to it.”

So may we do it, with the right heart, for God’s pleaser and purpose not man’s!

Now let’s move on to prayer which I did not want to rush through last week.

When you pray

Matthew 6:5–6 NASB95

5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Just as Jesus made the assumption they were doing acts of righteousness (v.1) and giving (v.2), what is the assumption (v.5)?

What is the warning, or maybe the sign you see in (v.6)?

Can you remember, or do you know what a hypocrite is?

When you look at (v.6) is this to be taken literal or figurative?

Should all prayers be be done in private?

Is public prayer wrong?

Now, there were times for Jewish prayers to be done in public

9, 12, 3

How about today can you think of any times that are appropriate for public prayers?

Think about this for a minute, it is very few places in scripture you can find that Jesus prayed publically. His norm was to go off by himself and pray to His father who was in heaven. When He did it was:

Before the 5,000 (Mt14); the disciples (Jn17) but again it was not his practice.

Jesus said don’t be like the hypocrites, so they would make sure they would at 9, 12, or 3 be in a public place (square etc) where they would have to stop and pray to be seen by man, not heard by God, trying to impress man, not God.

Why do it in a private place? Because then it is just us and God. There is no one else there, just us and God, no one to impress, just God and you can’t impress Him, he created you in His image already.

God does not forbid public prayer, but the purpose, the intent, the focus of the prayer must always be God and not towards pleasing or the applause of man. - - - they get their reward in full now.

The Right prayer

Matthew 6:7–8 NASB95

7 “And 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. 8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

It is not about the recantation, repetition of words. All lips, all mind with no heart.

Clarke once said: “the true God isn’t impressed by the length or the eloquence of our prayers, but the heart. Prayers requires more of the heart than of the tongue. The eloquence of prayer consists in the fervency of desire, and simplicity of faith.”

Unknown author “When we try to impress God (or worse other people) with our many words) we deny that God is a loving, yet holy Father. We should let our words be few.

We don’t need to pray to tell God what we need, He already knows before we ask Him. We pray to commune with God. To appeal to a loving, caring, compassionate God who wants us to bring everything to His throne of mercy and grace.

Another quote by Clarke I could not pass up: “Prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery; to humble his heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul from earth to heaven and to put him in the mind that there is his Father, his County and His inheritance.”

A manner of prayer

A manner, a way to pray; similarity found in Lk11:2-4. If you go to Westside we looked at this last week. So I don’t want to belabor this too much, but then it’s prayer and it should be a priority for the Christian.

This is a how, not what to pray.

The right kind of prayer comes to our Father in Heaven - it recognizes who we pray to. The relationship we enter into. “OUR FATHER” The Jews would not say that, they would say “Yahweh”

Yet this is the one we pray to, the creator of the heaven and the earth the one who has rule, reign over all things who calls us by name, we call him OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN.

It also acknowledges the location of our Father, he is our Heavenly Father, He resides in Heaven. the place of His holiness, His glory.

Hallowed be your name -your will be done, on earth as in heaven- the right kind of prayer has passion for God’s will to be done here on earth as it is done in heaven. Our desire should be God’s desire. We should put God’s will above our own. Remember we died to self and were raised up in Christ when we were born again, so Hallowed be His name, Holy is His name and we will desire for His will to be done.

Think about this “your will be done” do we mean it?

Jesus meant it “not my will but your will”

Others can say it but mean “well you are going to have your way anyways so just do it

Others may say “Do what you know is best, I don;t like it but I know you know what is best.” - - - I fall into this category a lot, just to be honest

Jesus was fully surrendered to The Fathers will, not begrudgingly, not under compulsion, but out of unadulterated love and dedication to the Father.

Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors - the right kind of prayer brings its needs to God for its daily needs for provision, and forgiveness.

Daily bread as in physical food?

Daily bread some thought this was communion, Lords’ supper

Daily bread thought this was Jesus since he was the bread of life

Daily bread thought this was the Word since is was considered bread

Forgive us our debts - We had our biggest debt - sin, forgiven, but we still fall short and we still need to acknowledge our part . . .

Forgive others, for we have been forgiven, we need to forgive others

Lead us not into temptation: God will not solicit evil, nor will he allow us to be tested beyond what we can handle

1Cor10:13 “13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

God does not temp men to do evil

Jm1:13 “13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.”

God does allow us to pass through periods of testing due to the fallen nature of man. Lead us not into temptation is saying Lord let me not go into temptation.

Spurgeon said it like this:

“The man who prays “lead us not into temptation and then goes into it is a liar before God. . . lead us not into temptation, is a shameful profanity when it comes from the lips of men who resort to places of amusement whose moral tone is bad.”

IF we truly pray lead us not into temptation then we are asking

Lord let me not boast of my strength but yours and yours alone

Lord let me not lead myself into any temptations or trials

Lord help me not to lead others into temptations or trials

The right kind of prayer focus on the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen.

This is what is consider the doxology; anthem, hymn. a song of praise

Most believe that this was added after and not a part of the original that Jesus taught.

It is a great focus though

Kingdom; Not this world nor the things of this world but on the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven where God lives, what will be our heavenly home, where Jesus was going, where Jesus is now.

The power. For Jesus was given all power in heaven and on earth and then he sent the power in the form of the Holy Spirit when he returned to His place at the right had of the Father just as He said he would do (Jn16:5-15).

And glory we have already seen that He gloried in the Father and the Father gloried in Him. So, no better way to pray and close the prayer than that.

(Prayer) (Close)