Untitled Sermon (2)

THE PRECAUTIONS OF PRAYER

Matthew 6:5–8

Now as many of you already know, I regularly drive on empty. I stop at the filling station as a last resort. Anytime my wife has to drive my vehicle, her question is always is there anything in the tank. To put it another way, I ride on fumes. Now, the reason I do it is because I’ve gotten away with it so often. Just getting to the station in the nick of time. It was one time when my wife was telling me I’m going to get caught here soon driving on empty and the car started to run out of gas, but it ran out of gas near an exit ramp that was going downhill with an Exxon station at the bottom. So, I said, see what happens when you know Jesus. Well unfortunately, I wasn’t so fortunate the next time because it ran out of gas and I was on the side of the road all embarrassed. I put up the hood. I definitely want everybody to think this was mechanical problems. To live a prayerless life is to live life with fumes. You’ll do it because you can get away with it until you wind up on the side of the road. For many of us, prayer is like your Triple A card. It’s there if you need it but you really don’t plan to use it very much. That is, unless you’re in an emergency.

Many of us struggle with this thing call prayer. I mean you’re talking to somebody you can’t see; who doesn’t answer back with an audible sound and often times it seems like you’re speaking into thin air. For so many of us, prayer is like the national anthem at a football game. It gets the game started but it really doesn’t have that much to do with what’s happening on the field. Ah, yeah, we’ll pray when we start our day or we’ll pray here or there but what really does it have to do with real life. For others, it’s like a parachute. Let’s keep it close in case we need it. We’re not the only ones to struggle with prayer. What it is how it works, and how to do it. Jesus’s disciples struggled with prayer. In fact, they had to ask the Lord to teach them to pray. They didn’t, they didn’t know. How do you as physical beings communicate with the invisible God? And in fact, why do you have to do it at all? On one side of the theological spectrum is the Calvinist who says, “Well, God’s going to do what God’s going to do anyway, so, why pray? On the other side of the spectrum is the Armenian who believes that we can coerce God by praying as though we had no will.

So, what do we make of this thing called prayer? Now, as we enter to discuss the Lord’s prayer, I want to make this quite clear, we’ll defend it as we go along and that is that, the Lord’s prayer is a pattern of prayer. It’s not the prayer you pray all the time the way it is lined out in the Bible. In fact, Jesus is going to say when we get to that portion, pray like this. Like this, don’t, don’t pray this. Pray like this. In other words, it’s a guide. It’s an outline. It’s a pattern. It’s not simply for road repetition alone. And so, what is this thing call prayer?

Prayer, the concept of prayer really comes from sheepdogs. The sheepdogs that would herd the sheep on behalf of the shepherd. You’ve seen them on television as a sheep begin to wander the sheepdog runs out and sort of corrals them. The concept of prayer was tied to when the sheepdog went to the shepherd and sat at the shepherd’s feet waiting for instruction about the next move the shepherd wanted the dog to make with regard to corralling the sheep. That’s, that’s where this concept of prayer comes from as it was used in Old and New Testament days. Or, to put it another way, when you pray, you are a sheepdog at the feet of the Shepherd. You have come to sit at His feet to receive instruction, to hear from the Shepherd.

Before Jesus teaches His disciples and therefore you and me, how to pray, He spends time telling us how not to pray. He introduces the positive “how to pray” with the negative “how not to pray” and what He wants to do is point out don’t be like them who call this prayer, which it is not, be like Me. I’m going to define where prayer is and therefore, you will know how to pray. So today, we want to start where Jesus starts and that is with the precautions for prayer, things to watch out for because they will ruin your prayer life. In fact, Jesus is going to say they are not prayer at all.

He says in 6:5, “And when you pray,”

He says in 6:5, “And when you pray,” You didn’t hear that. He says again in 6:5, “And when you pray,” or to put it another way, He doesn’t say, and IF you pray.

 The first thing He wants you to know is that we must pray regularly.

When you do it. Whenever you do it, don’t do it like this, because He’s getting ready to state a negative, but His issue is when you do it. It is expected that if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, not merely a Christian but a disciple, you will pray and whenever that is; as often as that is, it’s regularity must be established in your life. Now since He uses the word prayer let’s define it even more directly. Prayer is a believer’s communication with God through the person of Christ assisted by the work of the Holy Spirit. At the core of prayer is communication with God. No, I didn’t say talking to God, I said communicating with God. Because we all know, it’s possible to talk and not communicate. Prayer has to do with communicating with a person. God is a person. So prayer is communicating with God. To put it another way, prayer is not talking to people. It’s communicating with God. In other words, the test of prayer is whether God is the audience of your conversation. Some people think they’re praying when they’re talking to themselves. No, prayer is communication with God. God must be the audience for you to call it prayer. He must be on your mind. He must be the focus of your attention, and your goal must be to get through to Him, if you are praying.

It’s not like the guy who is, he was praying and his English was terrible, all broken and he was just doing a horrible job destroying the king’s English, and mixing up verbs and adjectives, and prepositional phrases, and; and it was a lady hearing him pray who was just beside herself as this man spoke like this. And after he said amen, he said young man, that was the worst grammar I have ever heard in my life. That was the worst articulation I have ever heard. I am disgusted that you would talk like that. He turned and looked at the woman and said, but lady I wasn’t talking to you. Because, prayer is communication with God.

It is communication through Christ. The only reason you can get to God is because a door was opened by the blood of Christ. “I am the way,”Jesus says, “the truth and the light.”I am the access point, no Jesus, no God. You cannot pounce into the presence of a holy God as a sinful man or woman. Access must be provided.

Like the young man who was sitting on the park bench, he was bawling. A little boy saw him and said, “Sir what’s wrong?” The man told him the story about his brother who was in prison, who was going to be killed, and he desperately wanted to see Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States but of course, you couldn’t just walk into Abraham Lincoln’s office. And he said, “I won’t be able to see the president, he’s the only one who can pardon my brother.” The little boy said, “Sir, would you come with me?” He took the man by the hand. Walked him into the presidential office through the guards, pass the secretary, with nobody mumbling a word. The man, he couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t get to the president although I tried, and here this little boy walks me straight pass everybody into the president’s office. President Lincoln stood up as the young man entered with the boy. He looked at the boy and said, “How can I help you son?” You see the reason the man could get into Abraham Lincoln’s office is because he had run into the son of Abraham Lincoln, and the son could walk pass all the opposition.

You can’t walk into the presence of a holy God unless you, that is, are escorted by the Son. And that’s why we pray in Jesus name. That’s not a nice religious tag to throw in and tack on to the end of your prayer. That’s your point of access. The Bible says in Heb 10 that we have access by the blood of Jesus Christ. That is, His death satisfied the demands of a holy God so you and I can. Here is why I like Heb 4, it says, boldly come to the throne of grace. Just walk pass the guards and not even speak. Boldly enter into His presence. Confidently, here I am Lord, and yes a man who sins before a holy God, but just before you get upset, look, who led me in here. Jesus Christ is my access point, and it is with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Rom 8:26–28 says that we don’t know how to pray, as we ought to. We don’t know what to say, sometimes we run out of things to say. Sometimes we’re hurting too bad. We can’t say anything. Sometimes it’s a blank out there. It’s like we’re in outer space.

How can we pray and know we are praying into a Holy Spirit? It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to take the mess you call prayer and turn it into a comprehensible outline. His job as the Holy Spirit is to take your weakness in prayer, for Rom 8 says we don’t know how to pray. In fact, it says sometimes we can’t pray, all we can do is groan. The Holy Spirit takes that first groan and says, “Father, now here’s what was in that first groan.” Takes that second groan, breaks it open, outlines it. Takes that third groan, outlines it, and by the time it gets to heaven, we’ve got a twelve page prayer out of three words. Because, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to take what cannot be clarified and clarify it. That’s why you’re never wasting your time when you pray even if you don’t know what to say, because it’s the Spirit’s job to make it real.

And so, when you pray, prayer must be a regular part of your life because it’s a critical part of your life. Now, I know what you’re asking. Why pray? Heb 11:6 puts it this way, “Without faith it is impossible to please God. Him that cometh to God must believe that He is.” Prayer is a way of expressing faith. Let me say that again. And when you pray, why should you pray regularly? Because, it is an expression of faith and without faith, it’s impossible to please God. So, even if you’re weak in faith, pray because “watch this” prayer is an act of faith. I am coming to a God I can’t see who doesn’t audibly speak back to me, but because I believe He is there and because I believe He has character that the Bible says, He has I’m going to come to you anyway. That takes faith. It is an act of faith to pray to God. It believes that He is there, He hears and He answers prayer.

“When you pray” When you adopt an attitude of coming as a sheepdog before a shepherd, when you adopt an attitude that I desperately need heaven right now. When you do this, and what you do is you open your life up to God. You create a relational communication with the almighty. You adopt, if you will, a God focus when you pray. Oh, I, don’t let me move on before I say a word about you. “When you pray.” Who are the, you’s? The disciples; see everybody who prays isn’t praying. For God has no obligation to the sinner or the sinner’s prayer unless he’s praying the sinner’s prayer. God’s obligation is to His children and He’s not equally obligated to all of them because His ultimate obligation are to His disciples. Now that’s, there’s a difference there. If you have two sons, and one is the prodigal, and one is faithful at home, both of them can call you daddy but they don’t have equal access. If you are here and you are not one of the you’s, “one of the disciples.” In other words, you’re, your passion isn’t to follow Christ, then don’t expect a lot out of your prayer life if you pray at all. Oh, by the way, the greater the discipleship the greater the prayer life, the lower the discipleship the lower the prayer life. “When you pray,” prayer must be done regularly.

Secondly, we must pray sincerely, verse 5. “When you pray, you are not to pray as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” Now, this goes with verse 1, which says “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”

Now watch this.

If you pray for the applause of men, you lose the applause of heaven. If your prayer is to be heard of people and not to communicate with God then don’t worry you aren’t communicating with God. The disciples needed the right model of prayer, and Jesus says it’s not the Pharisee’s. They are the hypocrites. It is a very victorious word in the New Testament, the word hypocrite. You’ve perhaps seen it on television when there would be a face on a stick and people would put the stick in front of them with the mask on it and they would speak from behind the mask. That was an actor. A play actor, in fact, sometimes they would have two or three different sticks with different masks and so they’d play this character and put this mask on. Take this stick, put this mask on, that was what was called a hypocrite or one playing a part. Whenever you had a hypocrite that is, an actor on a stage, he was entertaining the crowd. And the way he did it was while pretending to be something he was not, the mask. So the Greek word for hypocrite meant to wear a mask, to hide the real you behind the mask so that other folk would not see you they would see who you wanted to be. Anybody getting the picture? The don’t be like the hypocrites because when they pray they wear a mask. They want to appear holier than they really are, the hypocrites, and the way you know it is they look forward to public opportunities to pray in front of people.

Now, most of the Jews prayed three times a day. Three, six, and nine PM. The hypocrites however, when prayer time come went to the most crowded part of the neighborhood. They went to the marketplaces. They went to the street corners, because they wanted everybody to see that they were spiritual. They wanted everybody to see that they were, they had religious piety. He says, whey you pray you’re not on stage. This isn’t a show for the people. This isn’t so other folk can hear you use words that you picked up in Bible study. This isn’t to appease the crowd. Eloquence in prayer may impress people but it has no necessary power in heaven. And oh, how we seek to get from people what we ought to be getting directly from God. But notice how strong the language is in verse 1 and verse 5. If you try to impress people you lose, cut off, break down, renege on whatever heaven was going to do for you.

It’s like the little boy who was praying: And Lord, bless mommy and daddy. And Lord, bless auntie and uncle. And Lord give us a good day today. And Lord please give me a bicycle for Christmas! His mother heard him. What is he doing? She walked into the room and said, “Son, son, you don’t have to scream. God can hear you.” “Mamma, I know God can hear me but grandma can’t hear very well and she got the money for the bike.” Some of you still working on it, take your time, I just, all the time you need.

I’ve been flimflam once in my life. I hate to admit it too. That’s an embarrassing thing to be flimflammed. Anybody here been flimflammed? All right, got a few non-liars in the house, all right, flimflammed tricked out of your money by a gag. And one of the ways, at least back then that you got flimflammed was they would take a wad of money and roll up big dollar bills on the top. Underneath it may either be little dollars or paper, okay, or paper. I might as well tell the whole truth. I got flimflammed with paper underneath. I didn’t get a little, get a little dollars, all right. So they’ll put a hundred dollar bills on top and they cut a deal with you so that you would be getting “so they would say” this wad of money. So, they appeal and agree and all of that, and at the deals coming a lot of different ways, but at the heart of the flimflam is what you see is not really what you looking at. Only the covering that is visible is what you really see, because underneath those hundred, a couple of hundred dollar bills is something of little value “ones” or no value at all “paper.”

Some Christians want us to think that what’s on top is what’s there is. Many of us have been flimflammed by apparent spirituality. By praise the Lord, hallelujah; let’s go to church. That can be front matter. That may be paper underneath or behind it. When you pray, pray sincerely. Not as they do for public recognition, public alkylates, public support.

Thirdly, we must pray secretly. Notice verse 6, “But you” That is you disciples. “When you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Your true faith is ultimately manifested when you’re alone. If you spend more time trying to impress folk on the street than you trying to impress God in the closet then your spiritual priorities are out of line. He says, when you pray, pray in secret. Now he doesn’t mean never pray in public. There are plenty of public prayers in the Bible. In 1 Tim 2, he tells the men in the church service to lift up holy hands in collective prayer. You find the priest calling together the people to pray. Jesus prayed publicly. He is not saying it’s wrong to pay, pray publicly. What he is saying is it’s wrong to pray publicly if you’re not praying privately. It’s wrong to give this façade on Wednesday night or Sunday morning, I want to be in His presence when you’re never ever in it. Anybody hear me? It’s a sin to raise your hand on Wednesday and you haven’t raised it all week long. That’s a façade. That’s looking holy before the crowd when there was no secret. What you do in secret is who you are. Not what you do when the crowd is watching.

When He says be in secret, here’s what He means. Shut out everything and anything that keeps you from concentrating on God. That’s what secret is. Shutting out anything and everything; that’s why He says, shut the door “closing out” undistracted environment. Have times when you pray when there are no distractions. Why? Because it doesn’t take much to keep you from hearing God’s voice. Why? Because God is spirit so if you and God are going to connect you must connect spiritually. You’re not going to hear audible voices. You’re not going to see Casper the friendly ghost flying around the room. That’s not going to happen. If you’re going to connect with God and God is going to connect with you it will happen when your human spirit links with the Holy Spirit to bring you in the very presence of God. And when God sees that you want Him so bad you’re willing to remove all distractions—sees you in secret. Awe! Now it will be clear that you are not playing to the crowd. To put it another way, church prayer can’t be your only prayer. God in fact, sees in secret it says. That’s where He focuses. His job is to look to see where you are when you are alone.

Now you say, well that’s boring to be by myself in a room, no noise, with me and supposedly God. All right, that’s how you feel. Tell the truth, shame the devil. It will seem boring till the spirits connect. Once the Spirit connects in the solitude of His presence, you will know what David wrote about in the Psalms. Why he talked about laying on his bed in God’s presence, and having God fill him, and having God just all around him, because he removed all distractions. There must be times when you and God are alone.

You say, well, okay, I’m in this room or whereever I am in this private place, dead silence, trying to communicate with God. What do I do there? That brings up the final point. We are to pray thoughtfully, verse 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.” The word meaningless repetition means babble, and babble means thoughtless verbosity. Verbal or words with no brain. No real thought behind it. Nothing went into it you’re just repeating the same words that you always say. That’s convicting, isn’t it? Now, I lay me down to sleep. Pray the Lord my soul will keep. If I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take. Now, if you’re two years old, that’s an okay prayer. But, if you’ve been saved for ten years and you still praying that prayer that’s meaningless repetition. Lord, bless this food I’m about to receive to the nourishment of my body. In Jesus name, amen, meaningless repetition. In other words, you can say it without thinking about it. Meaningless repetition is being able to say it with your mouth without thinking it in your mind. That’s meaningless rep. Meaningless repetition is not repeating something that you’ve repeated before. That’s just repetition. Meaningless repetition is to repeat it with an unengaged mind. It took no thought to think it through. In other words, God is not on your mind so you’re not communicating with Him. You not talking to Him. You’re talking to yourself using His name. You know you’re supposed to pray before bed. You know you’re supposed to pray when you get up in the morning. You know you’re supposed to say grace before you eat. You’ll even get mad if somebody start eating and don’t say grace. Put that food down boy, you ain’t said no grace.

I remember when I was a boy and my mother fried chicken, and I was supposed to pray. I prayed with my eyes open. That’s right. My sin goes way back. I prayed, I prayed with my eyes open and I looked at that thigh that I wanted, so I would fold my hands, I said let us pray. I’d fold my hands and stick my hands on the other side of my plate so I was half way there to my goal. And I knew when I was going to say amen, okay. Now I wasn’t thinking about God. I was thinking about chicken. I just had to get rid of God to get the chicken, all right. And sometimes prayer for us is getting rid of God so we can get to the real deal, so we can get to the real thing. Come on lets hurry up and pray before this meeting so we can get to the real deal. Let’s hurry up and pray before this situation, so we can get to the practical stuff, meaningless repetition.

Whole religions are built around meaningless repetition, like the rosary. You know, you start fooling with the rosary and you say the words, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” you know, meaningless repetition. This is no thought of it at all. Not because you say the same words, but because there is no mind tied to it. That’s what makes it meaningless repetition. Whole religious systems are built on it. Say Jesus, Jesus. Say it two or three times, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Say it ten times, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Say it faster, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, … No, you just, meaningless repetition. What did you just say? I don’t know but it must have been holy, because I didn’t understand it. You never worship God with your mind shut down. Now, you don’t worship Him without your emotion either but you certainly don’t emote to the point where you can’t think, where you can’t think. That’s meaningless repetition. They supposed that they would be heard because they’ll keep saying this same thing all of the time. It’s idle conversation.

You ever go home, your wife meets you at the door and its idle conversation. Hello. How you doing? What happened today? Oh, what’s for dinner, you know? You know they don’t care what happened today. You know that. They not really asking what happened today. They getting rid of the things they supposed to say, right. And some, sometimes you’ll tell them, you don’t care what happened today. All right, because you know they’re only saying the right words. That’s meaningless repetition. In other words, there was nothing behind it. There was no red, now if we know that as humans do you think we trick God? That God doesn’t know that there was no meaning behind those words. You were just fulfilling a Christian job description.

You say, well, how can I stop having meaningless repetition? Easy, the more you know about somebody the more you can discuss. The way you turn meaningless repetition to meaningful repetition is increase your knowledge of the subject and bring that information to bear in your discussion. If you go to church and you learn something new about God, include that in your prayer life. The more you learn about our great God, you include that in your prayer life and now you’ve got meaningful repetition, not meaningless repetition. So, whenever you disengage your mind and call it prayer God knows you’re not really there.

You remember 1 Kings 18, when Elisha was on the mountain and he was making fun of their gods. They were begging their gods, come on god! Show up! Show up! Show up god, show up god, show up god, show up god, show up god. Elisha started till he said, “Oh, oh, your god is asleep. Your god is napping. Oh no, he’s on a vacation. Now, he on the John, that’s where your god is. He’s using the bathroom, okay. He’s indisposed at the moment. Because they had to go through these incantations and go through all these motions to get god to hear. God is not impressed with a bunch of words. He’s impressed with somebody who’s there to be with Him, and if that spirit is not in your secret place, being in the public place doesn’t help you.

He closes with verse 8 “Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him.” That’s a very close, important closing point. You’d never pray to inform God, He already knows. Like any good daddy, He know you coming to get something, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, He, He, He’s knows. He knows, if fathers knows it, your father will ask you in a minute, what you want? Okay, you know when your children want something. He already knows you need something.

So, let’s close with this passage. Turn over one page to 7:7. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.” Asking demands humility because that means you got to go and request something. Seeking demands action because to seek you’ve got to look for something. Knocking demands repetition because nobody goes to a door and does this (taps podium once) You go to a door and go (taps podium 5 times) you knock, it’s repetitious. So, ask: humility; Seek: I’m looking for it expecting it. Knock: I’m ma keep rapping at this door till somebody answers it. All right. A good father will service the request of his children if he deems it beneficial to the child. “For everyone who asks receives,” verse 8 says, “he who seeks find, to him who knocks it shall be opened. Or what man is there among you, who when his son ask for a loaf, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask for a fish, he will give him a snake. If you then being evil, “sinful people” know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give (you) what is good to those who ask Him!” Now, listen to this in closing. He says fish and bread, if you ask for bread He not going to give you a stone right? If you ask for fish He not going to give you a snake, because that’s not good for you.

Now watch this. Do you know what fish and bread were? The ordinary diet of the Jewish person; I mean that was just, that’s kind of, how you ate every day. You went to the Sea of Galilee. You caught a fish. You took some bread. That was a regular meal. Remember the feeding of the five thousand. A little boy had his lunch, the barely loaves and the fish, that was the way you ate. Now, watch this. God is concerned “hear me now” about the ordinary stuff, fish and bread. He doesn’t just want to hear from you because you’ve got terminal cancer. He doesn’t just want to hear from you because you lost your job. He doesn’t just want to hear from you because you had a bad day at the office or because you’ve got a sickness that they cannot find what the solution for it was. Or, you’ve got bills that you can’t pay. He doesn’t mind hearing from you on those but He also wants to hear from you when you need fish and bread. He wants to hear from you with the simple ordinary things, not just with the big gigantuous things. He wants to know He’s part of your everyday life, that’s what He wants. He doesn’t want to be your 911. He doesn’t want to be your big Daddy up in the sky. He doesn’t want to be just your big problem solver although Daddy’s available for that too. But any father wants to know my kid loves me even in the ordinary things, fish and bread. If you only relate to God in the big stuff, you’ll only relate to Him occasionally. But if you relate to Him in the fish and bread stuff, “the ordinary stuff” now you know what 1 Thessalonians 5 means when it says pray without ceasing.

How can you talk to God all the time? Because you always doing something ordinary all the time. God wants to know because you just, just a little tired right now. He wants to know because you, you know you just, things you know you, something just good happened. Lord I just want to thank you that, that just happened just now. Yeah, I know it’s no big deal. I just thought you wanted to know “ordinary stuff.” He wants to know He’s on your mind, and when He becomes your “watch this” ordinary God not, not, not just spectacular God only.

Praise Him when He opens up the Red Sea. Praise Him when He brings water out of the stone, and manner from on high. Praise Him when the doctor’s says your sickness is cured. Praise Him for that but just praise Him because nothing went bad today. Praise Him because He could, gave you ordinary food. Praise Him because you could drive through McDonald’s. Praise Him because you drive through Churches chicken. That’s where I am. Praise Him because you can do the ordinary stuff. In other words, bring Him to bear with the stones or with the bread, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the fish. Bring Him to the ordinary and guess what? He’ll be there for the spectacular.

And all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s stand.[1]