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And when you pray
And when you pray…
, “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.
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.
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.
Pray then like this:
“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.
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.
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.”
The history of God’s people is decorated with men and women of prayer.
Book after book has been writing about men and women of God who knew how to fall before God at the altar of prayer until their prayers were answered.
There are countless stories told about how some of these prayer veterans even gave their lives calling out to the Lord.
I believe that there is no greater accolade given to any believer than to call him or her a prayer warrior.
Don’t you want to be known as a prayer warrior?
Don’t you want to have the boldness of Moses, who represented God’s people before the Lord?
Don’t you want the faith of Elijah, who called down the very fire of God to correct and consume the false prophets of Baal?
Don’t you desire the passion of Ezra as he held forth the Word of God in repentance, prayer and fasting?
Or don’t you want the practical brokenness of Nehemiah before God, asking Him to enable him to rebuild the wall.
All of these prayer warriors understood the place, the promise and the purpose of prayer in their lives.
Jesus was a man of prayer!
Think about that for a moment.
He was the Son of God.
He could do all things and could do anything He needed to in His life.
But, He chose to follow the instructions of His Father, to introduce the way of fellowship with His Father and to immerse Himself in the insight and the impact of His Father.
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.
For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise” ().
Jesus was a man of prayer; He dedicate His life on the earth to prayer and to service to His Father.
He personified the deep commitment to prayer that we should all modeled.
Jesus shows us that fellowship with the Father is entering into, engaging with, and fully experiencing being eternally supported by prayer.
Prayer is the means by which we can know God and His will for our lives.
Prayer is our means of communication with God.
Prayer is also the way we have spiritual power.
Let us pray…
This passage shows that, just as it was in the case of helping the poor, so there was a tendency for people to use their prayers as a means of impressing others with their piety.
But prayer is to be communion with God, not a means of increasing one’s reputation.
To pray with a view to impress people is wrongheaded.
Jesus calls on praying people to consider what they are doing.
They should concentrate on the matter in hand and forget the plaudits of people.
Prayer is the means by which we can know God and His will for our lives.
, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Matthew has a good deal to say about prayer.
There is a change from the singular to the plural, when we get to our passage, 5a“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.
For they love to…” Jesus is not so much uttering a prophecy as He is giving a direction.
“The words must not be like the hypocrites…” signifies those who profess pious action but are really pathetic amateurs.
Their piety is for those who are looking but not a true purity of heart.
They have their eye and what people might think instead of what God thinks.
By their actions they show that their concern and affection is not towards the grace of God.
But toward the people around them who have not authority to grant them salvation or grade their behavior.
5b‘… For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.
Now, standing was a normal posture for prayer, though when the worshiper wished to adopt an especially lowly position they might prostrate themselves, as Jesus did in Gethsemane.
People might pray kneeling or sitting.
Clearly the physical posture is unimportant as along as you are kneeing and bowing, and lying prostrate before God in your spiritual posture.
As we have seen before, the synagogue was the center of community life as well as the place of worship.
To pray standing in a synagogue was to take up a very public posture.
The same must be said about praying on street corners.
The junction of two streets would be a very public place and to pray there, in a place not especially given over to religious exercises and with many people about to observe what was going on, made a statement.
The Jews were known to offered prayers at prescribed times like in , “Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.”
Or like in , ‘When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem.
He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God.’
And it was not beyond the ingenuity of some to order their affairs so that they were in a public place at the time of prayer and so that they were “compelled” to pray where they would be seen.
Why did some to the people choose to prayer in public spaces?
5c, …that they may be seen by others… This phrase introduces the very purpose of their activity: this public exercise was not aimed at addressing God, but it actually sought to achieve visibility before men.
This is clearly seen in the last words of this verse, 5d, ‘… Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.’
If we do things to see the reward of men, we will always forfeit the reward of God.
These words about reward are repeated exactly from verse 2. , “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Like those demonstrative givers of alms, those who pray merely to put on a show have been “paid in full” for their efforts.
Here Jesus is not condemning public prayer or praying in a public place; it is praying in such a way as to maximize its effect on other people that its reverence towards God that he condemns.
6 In verse 6 Matthew gives us a contrast, by starting this verse off with the word ‘But’.
Here he uses this word in the emphatic sense and to contrast the preceding statement.
The true followers of Jesus do not pray simply in that demonstrative fashion; they pray that they can know God and His will for our lives.
6a‘But when you pray…” which means that this is the way they must always pray.
Jesus is not, forbidding prayer in public, but Jesus is proclaiming that when you pray, pray for a deeper knowledge of God and self.
When we are seeking God through prayer we are seeking to further our intimate relationship with God as Jesus tells us to, ‘… go into your room and shut the door…’
, So he went in and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the LORD.
Then he went up and lay on the child, putting his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands.
And as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm.”
, ‘Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.’
Rather, here Jesus is giving direction for our own prayer life and indicating that they are to undertaken it with a single eye on God, not with a side-glance at people who could be impressed.
Go into your room (the word means an inner room) prescribes a private place for such prayer.
Shutting the door of the room secures it from observation from the street, and shutting the door secures it from the consideration of those around you, and shutting the door secures it from examination by others.
Every precaution is to be taken that the prayer should be unobserved.
‘… and pray to your Father who is in secret.’
The secret of religion is religion in secret”.
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