When You Pray!

Don’t Pray Like A Hypocrite

Jesus cautioned his listeners not to pray like the Hypocrites. Matt. 6:5

Matthew 6:5 NASB95

“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.

Hypocrites have no interest in praying to God. They are lifting their voices to impress people. They want other people to think they are spiritual because of their eloquent prayers.

They are like actors performing a play. They desire the applause of the people rather than the approval of God. Matt. 23:5

Matthew 23:5 NASB95

“But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.

The appearance of holiness was more important to the religious people of the day than actual holiness. It was the appearance of holiness that justified their comfortable life-style.

What is scary about their prayer is that their is nothing that they did out of the ordinary that would indicate any hypocricey. Standing to to pray was a common posture among Jews to pray. Praying on the street corners was also common among the people. The only indicator of hypocricey was the posture of their heart. This is not visible by the human eye. 1 Sam. 16:7

1 Samuel 16:7 NASB95

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

It is the posture of the heart that God looks at when we pray. Are are hearts right before God when we pray? How do we know? the Bible gives us a clear example of a right heart before God in Luke 18:9-14

Luke 18:9–14 NASB95

And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

God desires a humble heart and not a prideful heart when we pray. Obviously, this Pharisee went before the Lord with a prideful heart. His pride was rooted in his morality, religious acts, and giving. He thought he was in good standing with the Lord because his outward appearance was impeccable. As a result of his self-righteousness he was not justified of his sins. Instead, he carried the wrath and consequences of his sin.

Conversely, the tax collector would not even look to heaven because of the shame of his sin. He pleaded for mercy from God for his sin. He reduced himself to nothing and relied on God’s mercy to restore him. This man went to the alter broken and left the alter justified!

Pray Humbly

There are four postures of the heart that God requires in 2 Chron. 7:14

2 Chronicles 7:14 NASB95

and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Child of God

The first posture of the heart is knowing that you are a child of God. God will only listen and answer the prayers of his children. Prov. 15:29

Proverbs 15:29 NASB95

The Lord is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.

The only prayer the Lord answers of the wicked is the one pleading for salvation. Those that are evil (all apart from Christ) will not have their prayers answered.

RC Sproul explains it this way: In short, God does hear the prayers of the unregenerate, but He is not all pleased to hear them. He sees them as we ought to see them, presumptious affronts to His holiness. We should not be encouraged when those who will not confess the name of Christ are praying, thinking that this means they must be at least part way there. Instead we ought to fear for their safety. God is not only not impressed with such “spirituality” but is profoundly offended by it. Even the regenerate would be wise to remember that “In Jesus’ name, amen” isn’t just a polite sign off to our prayers, but is instead the very foundation of our prayers, the very door by which they might be “heard.” We would likewise be wise to remember that while God does not “hear” the prayers of the regenerate, He does indeed hear, and delights to hear the prayers of the regenerate for the unregenerate. Pray for the lost, for their prayers will only lead them deeper into His wrath while yours may be used to bring them into the kingdom.

Humble Heart

Our heart should have no pride. Instead we should humble ourselves before the mercy of God as the tax collector did. We should not go before the Lord with any arrogance of anything we have accomplished or done. Our hearts should be totally commited and dependent upon the Lord. Any boasting that we do should be in the Lord 1 Cor. 1:31

1 Corinthians 1:31 NASB95

so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Our boasting should be in the goodness of the Lord through expressions of gratitude for His being.

Seek the Lord’s face

God desires relationship with us. He wants to be known by us. We must have a desire to know him and pursue him in our prayers. This desire comes about by adhering to greatest commandment. Matt. 22:37

Matthew 22:37 NASB95

And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

Our pursuit of God should be motivated out of our love for God. God will reveal Himself to those who seek Him from a heart of love. Matt. 6:33

Matthew 6:33 NASB95

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Heart of repentance

The Lord instructs the people to turn from their wicked ways. This is a heart of repentance. It is turning your heart away from the sinful desires of the flesh, throwing yourself on the mercy of God for the forgiveness of sins through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and pursing the fruits of the spirit. Gal 5:22 -23

Galatians 5:22–23 NASB95

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

So God requires the heart of a child, that is humble, motivated by a love for God, and is repentant.

Don’t Use Meaningless Prayers

Jesus cautioned about praying like a Gentile. Matt. 6:7

Matthew 6:7 NASB95

“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.

Jesus is referring to the belief that the longer your prayer is the more sincere God will think your prayers are. This is not the case. As a matter of fact when you have long prayers you have a tendency to repeat yourself. We do not need to do this because God already knows what we need before we ask Him. Matt. 6:8

Matthew 6:8 NASB95

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

We do not need to inform God of our needs repetitively, because He already knows what we need. He wants us to acknowledge our need and His ability to meet the need. Then he wants us to trust in His answer to our prayer.

Jesus is not cautioning us about praying for something more than once. Jesus prayed three times in the garden of Gethsemane that the Lord would let the cup pass before Him. He was sincere all three times because of the magnitude of what He was facing.

Another time we see Paul praying three times for the Lord to remove his thorn in the flesh. He repeatedly prayed this because of the heaviness of the burden.

In both cases God did not answer the prayer the way of the desire of the person, but instead answered it in His much better way. In the matter of Christ, God allowed Him to be crucified but resurrected Him from the dead and reconciled humanity from sin. In Paul’s case God did not remove the thorn in his flesh, but gave him the grace to endure it.

There is no need to say long prayers to impress God. God already knows. He is more interested in the posture of our hearts than the words that come from our mouths.

Pray Secretly

Jesus says that when we pray it should be a private conversation between us and God. It is one that is don behind closed doors. Matt. 6:6

Matthew 6:6 NASB95

“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.

There are matters of the heart that only you and God need to know about. It is in the inner room behind closed doors that you can deal with those most important issues of the heart. It shows total confidence and trust in the Lord when you go to Him in your inner room and pray the the things that are most sacred and secret.

The difficult part of secret prayer is getting to the sacred within our hearts. Earlier this week Paul mentioned a phrase that really expresses these matters of sacredness. He said that they are matters of imbedded sin in our heart. He is exactly right. Jessica then made mentioned that these imbedded sins are often secret. We learn a lot from one another on Wednesday night!

The matter at hand is that we have to trust God enough to allow Him to deal with those imbedded secret sins within our hearts. It is difficult because we fear the consequences of confession. God already knows! The consequences are already happening.

God wants us to repent so that we can experience liberation from the secret sin that holds us in bondage. When we live in the liberty of God, we grow in our love for Christ. Gal. 5:1

Galatians 5:1 NASB95

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Christ desires us to live free! It is a matter of trust. Do you believe that God will judge us for confessing our secret sin or liberate us from it. As long as we keep it from Him we will continue to live in it. It is only when we confess it to Him that we can be freed from its power in our life.

John 3:17 NASB95

“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.