Sermon Tone Analysis

Vision moment:

Introduction:

Last week we began the next section of The Sermon on the Mount and discovered that Jesus was not only correcting the way people think about “What the life of flourishing looks like” but also Jesus was correcting the way that people (especially the Jewish people) thought about morality.

In this third part of the series, Jesus confronts the way that people practice their righteousness.

By this Jesus means, the way the people of the Kingdom go about spiritual disciplines.

He taught that, “The disciples of Jesus would continue to practice generosity, but not to be seen or praised by man, but as a means of grace.”

Tension:

And this religious showmanship was clearly a problem especially for the Jewish religious leaders of the day.

Jesus calls out (in all three disciplines) a sort of theatrical performance where a seemingly godly person felt this need to only practice their religion as long as other people were watching and praising them for their religiosity.

Jesus creates this tension only in this middle discipline.

Do you see what he does?

So, much like what he did in the Beatitudes and then in the teaching on a greater righteousness in morality, he draws a portrait of the typical Jewish way of praying and the typical Gentile way of praying.

I think that what Jesus is getting at is something that researchers have discovered 2000 years later.

Basically everyone prays.

Not everyone is generous (50-60 give 2% and the church only gives 2% of income).

But almost everyone prays.

Barna research reported that 79% of Americans have prayed at least once in the last three months.

Now, Jesus doesn’t really feel the need to address that the Gentiles are probably praying to a non-god, so I won’t address the 79% either.

That’s not really the point.

The point Jesus makes is:

Disciples of Jesus practice prayer, not to be seen or praised by man, or to try to get God’s attention, but because we have a Father who knows us and what we need.

Teaching:

Disciples of Jesus practice prayer

Again, as with practicing generosity disciples make a practice or a habit of praying.

Verse 5 - “When you pray”

Verse 6 - “When you pray”

Verse 7 - “And when you pray”

Verse 9 - “Pray then like this:”

Because Jesus is teaching a group of people who did not have to learn that spiritual disciplines were just a normal part of life, he doesn’t talk much about WHY prayer is a normal part of life.

He just assumes that they will continue to practice their prayers just as they always have.

The tension for us is that we’re pragmatic by nature, so we want to know why should we develop a habit of praying?

What true benefit will come of my praying?

Will my prayers actually move the hand of God?

And I thought we were supposed to be led by the Spirit, so why are we even talking about habits?

All of those questions are worthy of discussion and I encourage you to talk about that over lunch.

I suggest “Prayer” by Tim Keller, “Praying Backwards” by Bryan Chapell or “Habits of Grace” by David Mathis and of course the classics by E.M. Bounds.

But that’s not what we’re going to spend much time on this morning.

Instead, I want you to orient your mind as if you were Jewish in this crowd.

Jesus knows that each of the people in this crowd probably knew that three times a day “Evening, morning, and at midday” they were to pray the Hebrew shema:

Deut 6:4

Deut 6:

A reiteration of this is found in .

But three times a day the Hebrews were commanded to recite this prayer.

They were to memorize it, teach it to their children while they were going about their day, in the morning and before sleep.

Constantly keeping the commands in front of them.

And we see this in the life of David:

But apparently the intended outcome and the actual outcome were different.

They clearly lost the meaning and intentions that God had for instructing regular prayers.

It’s amazing how

Years later we see it in Daniel’s life:

Dan 6

Interestingly enough, we don’t really see the practice stopped in the NT.

For instance:

God sent His Spirit at Pentecost at morning prayer time

He sent Peter to preach the Gospel to a Gentile at noon prayer time

Acts

And God spoke to the Gentile, Cornelius, who was praying at evening prayer time

Paul told to the church in Thessalonica to pray without ceasing in and the church in Ephesus to pray at all times in the Holy Spirit in .

The point I’m making is that (partially do to our desire to distance ourselves from dead religious practice) we have come to believe something that is not true.

It is not true that practicing prayer will always lead us to some formal and meaningless religion.

How do we prevent that from taking place?

We learn from Jesus that:

We do not practice prayer to be seen or praised by others or to get God’s attention, but because we have a Father who knows us and what we need.

The hypocrites LOVE to pray standing up in front of people who will applaud their spiritual faithfulness and their “unashamed stand for YHWH.”

And the Gentiles, they’re not so concerned about receiving prayers from those around them, they are trying to wake up whatever deity they need something from and HOPE they don’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

Even within 21st century Christianity, we see both errors practiced.

If we’re going to stick with a prayer life, we need someone to affirm we’re doing a good job.

It’s interesting how we measure whether someone is serious about their faith.

We look at a street preacher or someone who posts a video of themselves or someone else saying really harsh, click-bait-y things that make it seem like they’re “Taking a stand” for Jesus.

Well, Jesus makes it sound like that’s a pretty bad measuring stick.

Just because someone is going public in their prayers like the Jews, or just because someone is going LONG and DEEP with their prayers like the Gentiles doesn’t mean they’re hitting the target.

No instead Jesus says,

A disciple doesn’t need the constant affirmation of others because a disciple trusts that the Father sees and knows their heart and therefore will reward the faithful disciple.

Jesus is not saying you should never pray in front of other people (just like with generosity).

He is contrasting outer religious practice with inner religious practice.

A disciple does not need to be insecure of the Father’s love.

He is Father, after all.

And to the one who doesn’t pray because they don’t think they have very much to say or it’s not very deep, Jesus says:

Your Father doesn’t need to hear eloquent and fancy terminology; he doesn’t have to be buttered up in order to hear from you.

Your Father loves you, He longs for you to know Him.

In fact he already knows what you need, so don’t put on, don’t try to be something you don’t need to be, just come as you are and your Father will welcome you.

This goes for praying with others too.

Do you look at people with terror when they ask you to pray with them?

And you have that look because you don’t think you have very much to say… Jesus says, Oh good, you should talk to your Father, he’s waiting to hear from you.

Instead of the two pointless approaches, the disciple, knowing he has the ear and the eye of the Father, prays with humility and simplicity these very words:

This brief poem has served the Church so well for over 2000 years.

I will not try to mine every little nugget found in this little prayer, but I do want to say a few things that might help us to be more aligned with the way Jesus intended for His disciples to pray.

The first is that Jesus could have said virtually anything here, but He chooses these words and there was nothing that Jesus said or did that lacked intentionality.

The prayer contains two main sections:

The address to the Father (God)

The acknowledgement of the Community (Others)

This clues us in on what Jesus is doing, right?

Matt 22:37

This back and forth of loving God and loving others is in the Beatitudes, it’s in the section on inner righteousness, and now we find it in the middle of the section on spiritual disciplines.

I think Jesus was really serious about “The Great Commandment.”

And there is no reason to think that Jesus didn’t mean it when he said, “When you pray, pray like this...”

The Address to the Father

Our Father in heaven… Father is an important address (Jesus more than likely going off the Psalms) because it bypasses any bit of confusion about how God feels about you, whether or not you’re welcome to come to him, or how he’ll respond to your prayers.

Hallowed by your name… hallowed is rooted in the word holy.

And the word holy means unique or completely set apart from all other things.