2024-06-30 The Private Life Of Prayer

Well, we are starting a new series this week on / / Prayer & Fasting, although it will primarily be on prayer, but Jesus also touches on fasting in this section of scripture that we are going to look at through these next few weeks.

Now of course, if you’ve been with us this year you know that we are taking a slow stroll through the / / Sermon on the Mount, which is this collection of small messages that Jesus gives in Matthew 5-7. And these messages all have a common theme, or lead to an eventual end, and that is what it looks like to live in the kingdom of Heaven.

Before Jesus starts his active ministry of preaching and miracles, John the Baptist was preaching a message of repentance for one reason - he was telling everyone that “The Kingdom of Heaven is coming.” Specifically, Matthew 3:1-2 says, / / In those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching. His message was, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

And people were coming to him at the Jordan River and being baptized in water, which symbolized the washing clean from sin, a new dedication to God. And at the end of Matthew 3 Jesus comes to John and tells him to baptize him. Which John certainly doesn’t understand, but Jesus said it was necessary, and so John agrees and goes along with it. This causes the single greatest event in proving Jesus is who he was in Matthew 3:16-17, when John baptizes Jesus, scripture says, / / After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

I love this scripture because the full representation of the Trinity of God is displayed right here in a single moment. The Son in the flesh being baptized, the Spirit coming from heaven to earth to move in and through Him, because the Spirit is a gift from the Father who dearly loves His children.

If you’ve read the story, Jesus, in Matthew 4 is led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, which really solidifies, if he ever had any doubt, which he probably didn’t but solidifies that He is the Son of God. And really, probably solidifies for the devil that there is no possible way to stop Jesus from a supernatural perspective, but that he will have to get humanity involved to undo whatever it is he thinks Jesus is doing. If the devil had the power to kill Jesus then he could’ve just ended the whole thing right there and then. Alone together in the wilderness. But he can’t, so he tries to trick him.

Now, I can’t assume the devil knew the plan - the ultimate plan - Jesus going to the cross and giving up his life. And to see Jesus, who is God the Son, on the earth in the flesh, yet still fully God and able to interact in this way with the spiritual world, must have been a bit weird for the devil. Did he really see this one coming? Did the spiritual realm understand the breadth of the plan of heaven?

When you read the stories of Jesus’ interaction with the spiritual world, the demons would squeal at him, “We know who you are, Jesus, Son of God.” And he would tell them to be silent and tell no one. And they were encountering the God of the universe, who is infinite in power, who knows no limitation, who existed before and outside of time and space, with the power to create time and space, who had even created them, and was now subjecting himself to the frailty and temporal nature of humanity - arguably one of the weakest of God’s creations - especially at that time period as an infant.

And Matthew says that after 40 days of fasting, Jesus was hungry, and the devil came to tempt him. And we can maybe assume that this is what the devil is thinking, that Jesus, in a weakened physical state, a human state, would be prone to human logic and human reasoning. And what do humans traditionally do? We take the easy road, don’t we?

Jesus will say it later, the road to life is narrow and hard, and few find it, and the road to death is wide and easy and those who choose that one are MANY.

We tend look for the easy way. So the devil temps Jesus with an easy path. And we’ll probably touch on this in the last week of this series on fasting, but / / first, the devil challenges Jesus’ physicality. After 40 days of fasting he says, “just turn these rocks into bread. no biggy for you, right?” And that might not seem like a big deal either, but if you know the full story, Jesus’ first miracle is turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana, and at that point he even says, “My time is not come yet.” But his mother, Mary, basically tells him to do it, and I mean come on, when your mama tells you to do something… So Jesus, who only did what he saw the Father do, and said what he heard the Father say, follows through with mama’s request - which means God the Father endorsed the mothering nature and heart of Mary in that moment and Jesus obeys - bringing the first recorded miracle of Jesus.

The devil will not be the one to pull this out of Jesus. Not a chance. The devil dictates nothing.

/ / Then he challenges his divine nature, or his ability or inability to die as a human and tells him to jump off the highest peak in the city of Jerusalem. “Won’t God save you? Won’t the angels protect you?” Now this also would’ve put Jesus instantly on the map. Jerusalem, being the capitol, but also the center of Roman authority at that time. If you see someone jump off the tallest building in town and land on their feet, you’re going to pay attention, aren’t you? So this would’ve created an instant following, and a definite fear within the Romans who were occupying the territory. But the time is not yet. So Jesus rebukes him.

And the / / last temptation challenges the way that God is going to work through Jesus to accomplish the main goal. Now, you can look at this a few different ways, but the temptation of Satan is rulership of Jesus. He says he will give him all the kingdoms of the world if all he does is bow down and worship him. The devil offers a fast track to the kingdoms of earth becoming the kingdoms of our God. But the path to that is not through bowing down and worshiping so he can become ruler. It’s laying down his life completely, to the cross, for the sake of humanity. And the devil is offering earthly rulership without eternal salvation for humanity, which leads me to believe he didn’t see the whole picture.

So, Jesus comes back from the wilderness after defeating these three temptations from the devil, and Matthew 4:17 says, / / From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

He calls his first disciples and this is the point where Matthew says, “Ok, here’s the Sermon on the Mount. This is it. This is what Jesus was preaching when he says that the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” Or some translations say, / / “at hand”. What that really means is that Kingdom of Heaven has met you. You have experienced it.

In Matthew 12 the Pharisees come to Jesus and accuse him of getting his power from Satan, which they say is how he can cast out demons. Jesus tells them that’s ridiculous, / / “Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A town or family splintered by feuding will fall apart. And if Satan is casting out Satan, he is divided and fighting against himself. His own kingdom will not survive. And if I am empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists? They cast out demons, too, so they will condemn you for what you have said. But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you.”

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:17, / / For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

/ / When the Spirit of God is present the Kingdom of God is represented!

So, what’s Jesus doing? He’s teaching people what it is like to live in the kingdom, to live by the Spirit, so that where they go, the kingdom is represented, and the Spirit can bring life, freedom and transformation.

This is the Sermon on the Mount. Live this way, unto the Lord, and see the world around you transformed by the life giving Spirit of God.

Remember what we’ve been connecting to in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 30:19-20, / / Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life!

As we follow and obey, as we learn to live by the Spirit, we will both find ourself living in, and representing the kingdom of heaven!

So, our whole last series, Money Matters, was from Matthew chapter 6. But if you noticed, the first week was from the first part of the chapter, vss 1-4, and then we skipped over a portion of scripture and finished up the last three weeks from vss 19-34.

In-between those two sections of scripture are 13 verses on the topic of prayer and fasting. Is this a coincidence? Or maybe is this the way Matthew compiled the sermon on the mount, or did Jesus actually teach these things in this order, we can’t really tell, but whatever the reason is, I see this as a bit of divine providence. Meaning, God intended for scripture to be laid out in this order.

Jesus starts with 4 verses on generosity - which is the foundation of money in scripture. We saw that throughout the whole series, God is generous, proves as much through creation, the law of Moses and the fulfillment of the law and prophets through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And because He is generous, and has created us in His image, or likeness, to be like him, we are meant to, called to, created to be generous. Others-focused, live giving, loving, generous people, just like the God we serve, just like the Father who created us.

But that’s not always easy, is it? He starts with “give your gifts in private. Not for earthly gain or recognition, but only for God. Live your life only for him and his recognition.”

And then he jumps into two similar topics. Not similar in that they involve money, but similar in that they hold the same potential to lure people into desire for recognition.

So, he starts with, when you give, do it this way, not like the pharisees who are looking for attention.

Then he brings up the topic of prayer, but with the same idea, and spends Matthew 6:5-15 talking about how to pray. And finally in vs 16-18, the topic of fasting, again, with the same idea.

Let me show you briefly by reading through this whole passage of scripture, Matthew 6:5-18, and then we’ll look at the first portion of that for today. This is Jesus teaching how to live and represent the Kingdom of Heaven, through the sermon on the mount, on the topic of prayer & fasting:

/ / “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Pray like this:

Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

May your Kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

“And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”

So, do you see how this is very much a continuation of what Jesus said about generosity, that we aren’t meant to give in public, we aren’t meant to be generous so others give us praise, but we should give privately.

So now we have to put these together and see these three statements:

/ / “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven… I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get.”

/ / “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.”

/ / “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.”

Generosity, Prayer, Fasting …each with the same warning, “I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.”

So, before we get any further into this opening text about prayer, there’s just a couple things we have to realize.

/ / 1. The Personal Christian life is first and foremost a deeply private relationship with God.

By that I don’t mean you can live the Christian life without community. I am saying that the things Jesus calls us to that are part of our personal relationship with God, are formed and cultivated and meant to be personal and private. This is a deep relationship that should be BUILT on the foundation of personal connection, that is then LIVED OUT in community.

Being a Christian is me personally following Jesus. Being His BODY, which is the fulfillment of that relationship, is done as the church, walking together.

Look at each three of these things we’ve just read about, generosity, prayer, fasting:

/ / “Give your gifts in private…”

/ / “…when you pray, go away by yourself…and pray to your Father in private…”

/ / “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious…Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private.”

As I was thinking about this topic of prayer this week, I thought, how often am I praying in private, vs. praying in public? My public prayer isn’t to be noticed and praised by people, but am I actively pursuing times of private prayer? And how often? And is that the primary focus of my prayer life?

And I want to dig for a moment here, because I think there’s a bit of Christian narcissism that can happen when we talk about our private life. A narcissist is someone who is so self-absorbed, self-involved that they can’t truly see the world around them.

I have heard so many times, seen so many memes, heard it preached, “God will endorse you publicly for what you do privately.” or “God will reward you publicly for what you do in private.”

“God will bless you publicly for what you do in private.”

“If you want a public ministry, minister to the Lord privately.”

“If you want to be a worship leader, worship the Lord privately.”

Can I be bold enough to say those statements are the very thing Jesus is speaking against? So what if you are praised, glorified, blessed, rewarded publicly. If that’s the goal, that’s the issue, and that’s all the reward you will get. That’s word for word what Jesus said.

So, this is then a caution for us. And I’m not saying I think anyone here is doing this. But, If you are going to Him in private SO THAT you can get rewarded publicly, the motive is still the same, you’re looking for others to see you. And I’ve seen this as an encouragement for those who desire to be in ministry, who want to lead worship, or preach on stage, or be a prophet, or evangelist, and the encouragement, although sounding good, is, “Develop your private life with Jesus SO THAT He can elevate you publicly.”

But that’s not the point of a private life with Jesus! When we give, pray, fast, do good deeds privately, our heavenly Father rewards us, but not a single time here does Jesus say that reward will be public recognition or endorsement of our spiritual life. Not once.

Each time Jesus speaks here he says the same thing, / / “…and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.” This is a personal transaction between you and God. You follow Jesus in good deeds. You follow Jesus in generosity, in prayer and in fasting, and he rewards you.

Do you remember we looked at that word back in our last series, it means to repay you for something you’ve given. The Father treats you like he’s indebted to you for what you’ve done. Remember the parable Jesus tells about the end of time? He says, “Whatever you did to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did to me.” God takes all of these things, when our motives are right, when our goal is pure, when we are endeavouring to honor Him, and He treats us like we were doing it directly to Jesus. And the Father so loves the Son that the Father rewards anyone who looks after His Son.

If you do these things in private so that you can be exalted before other people in public, that’s just the same thing as doing these things in public so that people will praise you for them.

Do these things in private, so that you can honor God in your life, as part of your deep, private relationship with Him, and He will reward you how He sees fit, not with the intention of being praised ourselves.

/ / 2. There is a Reward

The second thing we have to recognize is that there is a reward. I know we talked about this in the first week of our Money Matters series, so we don’t need to rehash it, if you weren’t here, go back and listen to week 1 of that series. But that is a reality of operating within the kingdom of heaven, that what we do either produces reward from those on this earth, or reward from our Father in heaven.

/ / Which reward do you want? From Humans or From God!

Listen, a good deed is a good deed. I think that’s wonderful. We should be doing good deeds, regardless of any reward. And as we know, you won’t always be able to do it without people seeing it. But this all comes down to motive of heart.

If you remember back in our very first series at the beginning of the year, in Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus talks about us being salt and light, about being the light of the world, and he says this, / / “let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

Motive. SO THAT everyone will praise. That’s the reason. The good deed is so someone else will see God and worship Him!

People might praise you for good deeds, that’s not the issue. Why did you do it? That’s the issue.

I am so grateful for the mentors that Kelley and I had when we started leading worship in Toronto. We were young, and impressionable. We were susceptible to the praise of man. And when you lead worship for thousands of people, and they are in an atmosphere where the presence of God is dramatically changing people’s lives, they become incredibly grateful, and say wonderful things to those who are involved.

This is not a brag in any way, it was just our reality. We were celebrated all over the world. People would pay for us to go somewhere, pay for our flights, our hotel, our food, ship our CDs across the world, and then pay us really well to lead worship. And even though we were doing this because of our love for God and to serve Him, do you know how easy it is to fall prey to the praise of mankind when you are treated that way?

Thankfully we had great mentors. Men and women who were like fathers and mothers who taught us, guided us and encouraged us always to turn the praise back to God. Yes, people are going to be grateful, there’s nothing wrong with that. But two things matter, what our motive is for doing the good deed, and how we internalize or reflect the praise of people.

Matthew 5:16 is such a great reminded, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. Those in whom the good deed is done for, do they turn and say, “Thank you, God!”? Do they turn and say, “I met God today!”? Do they see beyond you and see the God you serve?

So, all of these things - good deeds, generosity, prayer, fasting… Think about it, that is so much of the Christian life, isn’t it? And Jesus is calling us to a deep personal relationship with God out of these things.

We do good deeds for the glory of God.

We are generous to others to be like our God who is generous himself.

We pray TO God, FOR God to the GLORY of God, not man.

We fast without earthly recognition, without notice, to posture ourselves before God, not man.

That’s the baseline here. Everything else comes out of that. Even community. Our worship together. Our prayer together. It’s not with the motive to be seen by each other, but to the glory of God for our corporate worship of Him.

So, that’s the baseline. Our motive and reward. The first must be private, the second might be private, might be public, but that doesn’t matter.

Now, let’s re-read the first few verses here, as an introduction specifically to the topic of prayer.

Matthew 6:5-8, / / “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything will reward you.

“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need before you ask him!”

/ / “When you pray…”

Jesus says that statement four times. And each time he makes a point about “when you pray…”. The first two are about motive and location, and the second two are about the way we do it and the words we use.

/ / Motive & Location

Now, we’ve obviously talked about this already, but let’s just look really specifically at the context here for a moment. Jesus says, / / “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites…”

Who are the hypocrites?

The hypocrites are the religious leaders of His day, the pharisees, the sadducees, those within the Jewish faith that had lost their reverence for God and were acting mostly out of religious duty. I heard someone say this the other day, and it’s been said so often, “Christianity isn’t religion, it’s relationship.” Anybody heard that one?

Now, obviously I started today talking about a deep, personal, private relationship with God. But, that’s not all of it here, and so I agree, and I disagree. And it might just be semantics, meaning, word play, but that can be very important.

When we say, “Christianity isn’t religion.” That’s just false. Christianity IS religion. The definition of / / religion is the belief in and worship of a god. And we know that “worship of” biblically defined in the Old Testament is Deuteronomy 30, you can do this by obeying… and New Testament… If anyone would be my follower (disciple) give up your own way and follow me.

The Christian religion is the belief in and worship of the God of the universe, who we believe is represented in the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And the working out of that is following the way of Jesus, by the empowering of the Holy Spirit, on the journey to the love and eternal acceptance of the Father.

But I get why people say it, because religion can easily become routine, and methodology, doing things for the sake of doing things. But here’s the real reason I don’t like that statement. For 2000 years the Christian faith has grown in personal lives through a daily practice of very natural means that produce supernatural results.

Jesus had a high value of Scripture. We know that. And what we are reading out of right now, the New Testament, wasn’t scripture then, it was happening, but we consider the NT to be scripture, just like the Old Testament that Jesus advocated for, right? And what’s Jesus talking about? Prayer, Fasting, Giving, Good deeds.

Right there are 5 of the most important practices within the Christian faith.

/ / Scripture, Prayer, Fasting, Generosity, Good Deeds!

The other reason I think a statement like this can be confusing is that in an earthly relationship we know that certain things are just done, and if you don’t do them, you run a risk of harming that relationship. When you have kids, you know you have to teach them this. They get to a certain age where they start helping out around the house to learn to be come a productive member of society, but also, to learn how to be a responsible member of a relationship, whether that is friendship or an eventual spouse.

And so Kaylee will ask sometimes, “Why do I have to do that?” And our response is, “Because this is part of living in a home together as a family, looking after each other, and loving each other. I don’t always want to do the dishes, mama doesn’t always want to do the laundry, but we do. So that we have clean plates to eat from and clean clothes to wear.”

Now…We get that. That’s easy to understand. Because, if I did nothing in our house. If I didn’t clean up after myself ever, I didn’t cook, or clean, or put dishes away, I just came in and waited for Kelley to serve me and do everything. Who here would fear for my marriage?

Not just that but what about the deepening of our actual relationship. Going past talking about doing things for each other, but being in relationship with each other. If we don’t talk, don’t connect, if we aren’t actually engaging with each other we aren’t really in relationship, are we?

This is why they have what they call “Empty Nest Divorce”… After kids leave for college, parents sometimes realize they were living so much for the raising of their children, that they were just partners in that endeavour and the relationship with each other was lost in the process.

And unfortunately, a lot of “Christians” act like they are living in a broken marriage. They expect the other person (God) to be there, and to do His part, but they don’t really care to do their part.

Why do we treat God like that? We want God to do everything for us, yet we live like it’s all on Him and we don’t have to do anything.

What did Jesus say in John 14:15, / / “If you love me, obey my commandments.”

When he sent the apostles out on the Great Commission, he said, / / “Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you” (Matthew 28:20)

/ / Learning and doing are a big part of our religion of believing and worshiping God that develop a deeper relationship with Him!

I can’t explain it fully, or logically. But God works supernaturally through the natural obedience of His people. When we dedicate ourselves to reading scripture, to prayer, to fasting, to following the way of Jesus and doing our very best at that, we receive supernatural reward in our life that goes beyond anything we could have done ourselves.

Listen, it might not seem productive sometimes, but I have read testimony people tell me personally that when they dedicated time to reading the bible they began to experience peace, hope, a closeness of God. Did all of the reading make sense? no. Did all of the times of prayer produce immediate results? no. But when we are faithful we experience God’s faithfulness.

I’m not saying he’s not faithful if we don’t. I’m saying in a relationship, even if the other person is perfect (like God and my wife), when WE engage in that relationship we get more out of it than if we just let the other person, in their perfectness, love us.

So, motive and location really speaks to the heart of why we do what we do. Yes, religion can become “works”, but don’t stop doing for fear of falling into “works”. Honor God with your actions, with your work, with your study and pursuit of Him.

When Jesus says, “When you pray…” He’s assuming that you are going to pray, but then tells you where you should do it.

/ / “When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private.”

Can I encourage you this morning - Make the choice today to either have, or increase your personal, private time of prayer to God. You don’t have to understand it all. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Start today by simply taking the time to focus on God and begin to share your heart with him. If that is fear, ok. If that is anxiety, ok. If that is praise, or worship, or anger, or despair… begin to invest in that personal, private relationship.

/ / The Way & the Words

Then the second two times Jesus says, “When you pray…” he again says a, “When you pray, don’t do it like this…. but when you pray, do it like this…”

And we’ll cover the “Don’t do it like this…” but we’ll actually get into the what to say next week as we start what is called “The Lord’s Prayer.”

But he says this, / / “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.

/ / Prayer is not a mantra to the universe to bend it’s will.

/ / Prayer is not a password to make God do something you want.

So, in the first part, motive and location, Jesus talks about the religious attitude of the Jewish people. Don’t allow religion to become stale, and works oriented. Don’t pray because it’s the good thing to do. Don’t pray to look religious. Don’t pray to be better than other people.

This time he goes after the way the Greeks and Romans prayed. Don’t pray like the gentiles do.

The Greeks and Romans believed in all kinds of gods, and they all had different purposes or different aspects of nature they would control. And the belief was that you had to appease these gods to receive their blessing, but also to avoid their wrath. And these gods were seen in the way we would treat humans, with our petty behavior, our bickering and quarreling. Wars in the heavens between the gods. Just look at greek mythology, it’s full of this craziness.

But, to appease these gods they thought they had to pray repetitively, first, to get their attention, and when they got their attention, they had to keep it, and ensure that what they were praying was heard correctly to convince the god to work on their behalf because their request was worth granting.

It was purely needs based. A graveling before a wrathful god that could choose to bless you or smite you. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people view God this way. If you do something wrong, He’ll curse you, if you do it right, He’ll bless you.

Jesus corrects this at the very beginning of his teaching on prayer. / / “…your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!” so you do not need to pray this way. You don’t need to convince your heavenly Father of what you need. He knows already.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place to pray for what we need. There’s definitely scriptural basis for that, and we’ll be looking at that in the coming weeks. But again, this week is all about the baseline, the motive, our approach to prayer. Am I here just nagging and nagging, rambling to try and appease a god that I’m afraid won’t hear me, or am I coming to this good God who Jesus says is a loving and perfect Father?

So, in closing today I want to make 4 statements that we want to carry through this series.

/ / Prayer is Important.

If you’re not praying, you need to be. If you are praying, you could probably be praying more.

/ / Prayer is First and Foremost, Personal.

God is personal. He is a relational God. He’s also God almighty, so we revere him. But Jesus calls him Father, and says to us to do the same.

/ / Pray in Private, then Pray in Public.

Praying in public isn’t bad, it’s encouraged. It’s a good thing. When we are together, we should be praying. But that will never take the place of a private prayer life between you and God.

/ / Pray to the praise and glory of God.

Our motive is important. In all we do we should have a sense of honoring God. What does that look like in prayer? It looks like not letting it get religious, repetitive, looking to God like he’s some sort of angry greek god of mythology that we need to appease, but instead seeing Him as our heavenly Father who loves us, but is also God almighty, the creator of the universe, which means he is to be worshipped, and means He is capable do anything and everything in our lives that he sees fit. And we can trust that as God Almighty, and Loving Father, he knows what we need and cares enough to take care of us. We don’t need to fear. We don’t need to work to gain His favor. He knows what we need and He loves us.

Let’s pray this morning, together.