Matthew 6:5-14 How to Pray

How to Pray

Intro: Have you all heard of the great missionary, Maewyn Succat? He was captured by pirates as a child and brought to Ireland. During his enslavement, he was called to Christianity and escaped his captors after six years. He returned to Ireland as a missionary, and in his teachings combined Irish pagan beliefs with Christian sacrament. He is annually honored on his feast day, March 17. Does this life perhaps ring a bell with someone you may know by another name? This man is better known as St. Patrick.

He is known for chasing the snakes out of Ireland, which is false and also using the three leafed shamrock to explain the trinity, which is doubtful, by most scholars’ account.

But one of the things he is renowned for is his prayer life. The prayer of St. Patrick’s Breastplate, which is attributed to him, written in 433 AD. It is a prayer of protection that Patrick supposedly wrote the prayer before he converted the Pagan Irish King Leary and the rst of the Irish.

Patrikc used prayer for specific reasons, and we see that jesus is going to teach his disciples how to pray

Read Verses:

MP: Prayer is a way for us to Focus on God

This is the motive that drives our prayer life.

I. Prayer is Private (5-6)

Jesus starts this section with the same warning that he did in the last section about giving. Beware of the Hypocrites.Do not be like those who put on a show when they pray in public.

Prayer is not a show that we put on in a restaurant or public place to say look at me, I am a Christian and I am praying. Look or listen to my great prayer skills. This is what Jesus is talking about. He does not say we cannot or should not pray in public. Again, we should let our light shine before men.But Men’s accolades or recognition should not be our goal in praying.

Like I said last week, that we sing like we are in the car,we should pray like we are alone in our cars. We pray like only God can hear our pleading, and our joys, and our fears. And those prayers and the reason we pray is for that reason. Our prayer should be motivated by our Love for God and the joy we get from knowing we are loved.

Patrick devoted himself to prayer because of his love for God. He once wrote: “The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same... I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain.”

It was love that fueled Patrick’s prayer life – not a desire to convince God to give him something, not a sense of obligation to fulfill, not an attempt to earn good standing with God, and not a plan to impress other people. Patrick simply wanted to spend time communicating with God because he loved being in God’s company.

So in verse 6, Jesus encourages the believer to go into the prayer closet, or a private room to have this conversation.

This does not mean that you cannot pray on the street or in a restaurant, but we should be praying to God privately, tethering ourselves to God so we have this connection to the Father. as well as praying corporately.

In Hannah prayed in front of the Synagogue picking up in verse 9 “On one occasion, Hannah got up after they ate and drank at Shiloh. The priest Eli was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s temple. 10 Deeply hurt, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears. 11 Making a vow, she pleaded, “Lord of Armies, if you will take notice of your servant’s affliction, remember and not forget me, and give your servant a son, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut.”

12 While she continued praying in the Lord’s presence, Eli watched her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying silently, and though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, “How long are you going to be drunk? Get rid of your wine!”

15 “No, my lord,” Hannah replied. “I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord. 16 Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment.”

17 Eli responded, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request you’ve made of him.”

Even though Hannah was in public, she was praying in private. And one of God’s servants, Eli, blessed her and she eventually became pregnant and had Samuel.

Jesus retreated up to the mountains when he wanted to Pray. In order to get away from people and get quiet with His Father.

In order to get away from people and get quiet with His Father.

II. Prayer is Honest (7-8)

Patrick was When Patrick was 16 years old, he was captured by Irish pirates. They brought him to Ireland where he was sold into slavery in Dalriada. There his job was to tend sheep.

Patrick's master, Milchu, was a high priest of Druidism, a Pagan sect that held major religious influence over the country at the time.

Patrick came to view his enslavement as God's test of his faith. During his six years of captivity, he became deeply devoted to Christianity through constant prayer. In a vision, he saw the children of pagan Ireland reaching out their hands to him and grew increasingly determined to convert the Irish to Christianity. Patrick was praying for his freedom from his creul master and it would seem that he was also praying for the Irish to be freed from their slavery to Paganism and Druidism.

If the records and stories are believed, then Patrick prayed all the time. He was a sort of modern day Daniel. It is not just a chant or mantra that gets repeated over and over again, like it is a magic spell.

Patrick, like Hannah, was honest in their prayers no matter where they said them. This is what Jesus is instructing us about.

Prayer is not a repeated lip service.

Sometimes we think something like “Oh yeah, I need to go and pray. We get in the mindset of doing things we ought to do and we forget why we are doing it. This does not mean we only pray when we feel like it.

There were more than a few times when i would go to the gym because i knew I needed to go, to do the workout, and many times, those were the best workouts I had. Why, because I got down to the brass tacks about things, I usually didn’t want to be there really long, so I minimized what I did , but when i did that I was more efficient and effective.

The Lord’s Prayer became the standard prayer in the Daily Office, which is praying at certain times of the day-- (; ). As Jews recite the Shema and the Amidah at fixed hours during the day, so Christians in the second century prayed the Lord’s Prayer morning, mid-day, and evening The prescribed prayers of the Apostolic Constitutions retain characteristics and themes inherited from Judaism that were Christianized for the church . Believers also said prayers at mealtimes during the services of the church.

But Jesus wants us to use prayer for more than just a mechanical or rote reciting of words. If we don't know what to pray, then by all means pray the Lord’s prayer. But if you are honest with yourself and God, the words will come. Or as Paul says, in Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Application Point: Use the Scripture to Pray. Many of the Psalms are written prayers that David felt compelled to write down. There is a Psalm for your situation. Find it and pray for it because you have to be honest with yourself when you feel surrounded on all sides and you are stuck.

There is a fantastic book called Piercing Heaven that makes prayers from many Puritan theologians and preachers available to the modern day audience. The puritans were not dour, boring people. They were passionate about their Christian life and piety that Jesus is explaining in the Sermon on the Mount. The editor of the book, Robert Elmer says “[The Puritans] aim was neither casual nor perfunctory prayer. The prayers of the Puritans shook lives to the core, pled with a sovereign God for mercy, and praised him in the brightest sunshine of grace.”

This book has been extremely helpful for me just in the past few weeks. Here is part of a prayer from Philip Doddridge about preparing for a sermon “Help me remember that I am not speaking to gain a reputation for eloquence, but that I am preparing food for precious and immortal souls, dispensing that sacred gospel which my Redeemer brought from heaven and sealed with his blood.”

Philip Doddridge, “A Prayer for Preparing a Sermon,” in Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans, ed. Robert Elmer (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 140.

So the question is are you honestly pleading with God, for what is going on in your life and are you waiting for answers. Because if you pray what is going on in your life, it should not sound the same every time. The Scripture has enough

TS: Because as you grow in your Faith, and you are hit with different challenges and you respond to God’s will for your life, you need different things. And this should humble you, because no matter the circumstance, you can come to God the creator for wisdom, advice, correction and fulfilment of the needs that you have.

III. Prayer is Humbling (9-14)

After Jesus gives us some warnings about what not to do and what his expectations are, Jesus really gives us the formula that we can use to construct our prayers. Again, if you get stuck and don't know what to pray, you can use this to just say it to put yourself in the right frame of mind

Prayer humbles us because we have to go to someone else and ask for things that we cannot obtain for ourselves.

Prayer humbles us because first and foremost, we are coming to not just anyone, but the creator of the universe. This is where we pray Our Father who is in heaven. We recognize where God is. He is seated on his throne. His name is holy or hallowed. But with prayer, we enter the Throne room, go before the king and plead our case for what we need or perhaps want.

Next we are asking for His will to be done. In part to be for his will to be known so we can participate and understand what. Or role in His kingdom is.

Next, As the Lord is teaching the apostles how to pray, he explains they must ask for the daily bread. Our day to day existence is not guaranteed. I do not say this to scare anyone, but we do not have a time frame of how long we are to live.

We also have to humble ourselves and put ourselves aside, our own bruised ego and forgive the person who wronged us even though they may never apologize to us for what they did. It only takes one to forgive but it takes two to reconcile.

We have to ask for forgiveness of our sins or our transgressions.The sins we commit put us in spiritual debt.

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve had open access toGod talking to him and visiting together. After the fall, Adam and Eve are cast out, being removed from his presence and communion.

The writer of Hebrews says “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Her 4:16

And we can come to the throne through Christ and That is what The writer is pointing us to; that our ability to come to God, is given to us from Christ.

How should we Pray? Origen , who was a theologian between 185-225 AD, started what can be described as The “A.C.T.S. Model” of prayer

Adoration of the Almighty Creator God

Confession of our Sins

Thanksgiving of what we have been given, not what we don’t have

Supplication which the action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly

Not losing sight of who was moving him to and from Ireland and keeping hims safe, Patrick humbly wrote the famous prayer “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate” – Patrick wrote about remembering Jesus Christ’s constant presence with him through prayer: “Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise…” he wrote. Since God is always with us, we can always connect with him through prayer. Taking advantage of that great gift is wise at all times.

Christ is always our focus. The grace of God that has saved us. The fact that he is all around us. That is the greatest gift we have and could receive and why would you want to put it away under a blanket or on a shelf? God is a gracious father whom we should always want to talk to . Not just when we want something.

Conclusion

Jesus taught us how to pray. We must start off in the privacy of our own homes or closet, and it must be honest that we admit when we wrong God and we ask for the help we need and cannot provide for ourselves. And that makes us humble and we need to be continuously humble and in communication and communion with God.

St Patrick used prayer for his deliverance from slavery, and then he used prayer to talk to God to give him strength and protection to convert a nation.

I will leave you with this quote to perhaps motivate you in your prayer life from Pastor Charlie Dates, “Prayer is not a way to get more from God, rather prayer is The Way to get more of God Himself”