Honest Prayer

Intro

· First Word: Greetings announcements warning prayer flip to Matthew 6

· Attention Getter: Imagine this—you’re out somewhere with no Wi-Fi, no bars, no signal. You type a message and hit send, but it just spins… and spins… “Message not delivered.”

Most of us would get frustrated—“Why won’t this work?” But here’s the thing: a lot of us pray like that every day.

We talk at God, but not to Him. We go through the motions—“Dear God, thank You for this day…”—while scrolling in our heads, thinking about dinner or the game later. We hit “send,” but our heart’s offline.

Jesus says in Matthew 6, prayer isn’t about being seen or sounding holy. It’s about connection. You can say all the right words, but if your heart’s not connected, it’s like sending texts with no service—nothing’s getting through.

· Context:

· Who: Matthew

· What: Jesus is the Christ

· When: While following Jesus

· Where: While following Jesus

· Why: To convince Jews that Jesus is the Christ

· Audience Relevance

Connect with God, not people’s approval.

Pray with purpose and focus.

Sin and bitterness are what kill your connection.

· Transition: It is sad to see that prayer is one of the most squandered things because we either completely disobey God and don’t do it or mistreat the opportunity to pray because we view God as a wishing well. I want you to ask yourself when is the last time you prayed? Do you know how to pray? Let’s see if you do...

Get Real With God

Matthew 6:5–8 ESV

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

· (5) Jesus assumes that we will pray.

· The whole reason that they pray is to be seen. It’s for show. That is their reward!

· Jesus is not saying that you should never pray in the streets; Jesus even had his own public prayers in 14:19 and 15:36. The focus is on the “Why?” of your prayer.

· (6) The focus is on what is the reason behind the prayer. Why do you pray? Who do you pray to? Do you even pray?

· Jesus assumes that we will pray

· Our prayers should be to an audience of one; if others are there, that is fine but there should be one intended recipient

· We should be set apart from the worldly even with our prayers.

· They have to pray so hard because their gods are blind, deaf, and dead! My God is alive, he walks with me, and he hears my petitions!

· (7)Pagans would pray the names of their gods and quick rehearsed prayers that they did not have to think about to say, it was just muscle memory; Jesus prohibits MINDLESS repetition, not the repetition of going back to the father in prayer.

· (8) You don’t have to use repetition with God because he already knows what you need.

· (8) Why pray to God if he already knows what you need? Prayer is not a time to inform God on things that he is ignorant of but rather to have a conversation with him in the posture of worship

Illustration: A pastor once visited his grandfather. This was an old man who was bedridden. The pastor walked into the room and noticed an empty chair beside his bed. The pastor asked, “Who’s the chair for?” The man smiled and said, “Oh, that’s where Jesus sits. I started talking to Him like this years ago. My pastor told me prayer was just talking to God, so I set up a chair and picture Him there. It changed everything.”

A few days later, that same old man passed away. When his daughter found him, he was leaning over—his head resting on the empty chair.

The man never prayed to impress anyone. He prayed to be close to Someone.

Application: Know how to pray to God

Get Aligned With God

Matthew 6:9–13 ESV

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day 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 evil.

· (9) This example for prayer consist of six petitions.

· (9) Jesus assumes that we will pray

· We pray individually to a communal Father

· First part of our prayer is addressing the Father as Holy

· (9) The first petition is that the name of God would be elevated above all others.

· (10) The second petition is for the Kingdom of God to be advanced.

· (10) The kingdom of heaven has come! Thank God for it because it cost him his son

· (10) The third petition is for God’s will to be fulfilled. This means for us to act in a way that is pleasing to him! Believers should obey God in the same way that he is obeyed in heaven.

· We are currently in the midst of a kingdom of earth and kingdom of heaven crossover but we should be aligning ourselves with God’s will to be done as we live in the world but are not of the world.

· (11) The fourth petition is asking for daily needs.

· (11) This is the first part of the prayer that we actually pray for ourselves. How many times do we say, “God could you do this for me? In Jesus’ name amen.”? It is not wrong to pray for your NEEDS but it’s only after addressing the father, his kingdom, and his will!

· Are you sending prayers as letters to God that you know he will answer or are you sending prayers “to whom it may concern”?

· Are we trusting God to fill our basic needs? Or are we grabbing what we WANT for ourselves?

· In my opinion, it’s not wrong to pray for your wants but understand that wants are not needs, so don’t get butt hurt when God didn’t make you prom queen or lift your truck for you. As time goes on, your wants should be aligning with God’s will.

· My grandmother use to say “want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up faster.”

· Thought experiment: if you trust God to answer your prayers, why don’t we trust him to meet our needs? If you don’t trust God to answer your prayers, then why are you praying to him in the first place? God will provide for you and if he doesn’t provide it, then you didn’t need it!

· (12) The fifth petition is for forgiveness of our personal sins

· (12) This does not mean that we need to ask God for justification daily since we are justified from our initial saving faith that is shown from the confession of our mouth that Jesus is Lord and the belief in our heart that God raised him from the dead; this is rather a prayer of restoration of personal fellowship with God after stumbling in sin.

· Jesus is assuming that we will forgive our debtors

· (12) It seems hypocritical to ask God for forgiveness but hold grudges against our fellow man. If you weren’t perfect, then why do you expect everyone around you to be?

· (13) The sixth and final petition is for God to lead us away from temptation.

· (13) Oftentimes the reason we find ourselves in temptation is because our flesh walks us straight into it, and we more than eager to fall right in line as pigs for the slaughter! This part of the prayer is to remind us to trust the spirit and not ourselves. The human heart is evil!

· Do you trust God to deliver you?

· This prayer starts off with “Our Father” and ends with “evil one” leaving ourselves within the framework in between these two sides fighting for our soul.

· (13) Some manuscripts added “For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.” The reason this is not included in most Bibles today is because the earliest dated manuscripts we have do not include this section, however, that does not mean that there is anything theologically incorrect with this sentence. We just try to maintain the original manuscripts as much as possible.

Illustration: Corrie Ten Boom once described prayer as a child bringing a torn map to their father. The child’s version of the map is messy, incomplete, full of mistakes—but the father gently takes it and says, “Let’s look at this together. Let’s see how it’s supposed to fit.”

That’s what the Disciples’ Prayer does. It refocuses our scattered, selfish prayers and aligns them with the Father’s heart: Your name be honored, Your kingdom come, Your will be done.

Application: Know what to pray

Get Right With God

Matthew 6:14–15 ESV

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

· (14-15) Out of all of this prayer, Jesus focuses in on the forgiveness of others and ourselves. Have you ever bothered to ask why?

· (14-15) This is referring to the restored relationship of personal fellowship between you and God, and not directly referring to salvation

· (Matthew 5:23-24) God will not accept your worship of a prayer offering if there is unforgiveness in your heart.

· (14) God’s forgiveness is not based on your forgiveness of others but rather a Christian’s forgiveness is based on realizing that they have been forgiven; have you been forgiven?

· (15) Notice that the debts, transgressions and offenses are not mentioned meaning that it doesn’t matter what they did!

· (15) Jesus focuses on this portion of the prayer because you cannot have a relationship with God that does not begin in, live in, and end in forgiveness! THE REST OF THIS PRAYER IS USELESS IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO FORGIVE!

Illustration: Charlie Kirk’s wife spoke at his funeral, and while nearly everyone is either celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk or demanding the assassin's blood be spilt for justice, she spoke of forgiveness. She forgave the young man that took her husband away from her and yet we can’t forgive someone for spelling our name wrong at Starbucks! It’s ridiculous!

Application: Forgive to Pray

Conclusion