How Should I Pray? 01/17/21

Well, good morning and welcome to New Grace Baptist Church and we are so glad that you are here today. And this is the sermon for Sunday January 17th. Of course, we're not meeting live at church right now due to the covid-19 burgers. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking about visiting our church, well, we hope that you will but right now we're not having live services. So you'll get the audio in video of this each and every week while I hope everyone has had a great week and I hope everyone is staying safe. I hope you're well and because of these covid-19 resign. Oh, there's a lot of anxiety around but we just want to take care of ourselves. So thank you for being here today. And before I forget you can listen to the sermons that I preach on our Facebook page and that it's at facebook.com new Grace Baptist Raleigh. That's where you will find us. And for those of the members you can also listen on faith wife and I also post these sermons and also a daily devotion on my own Facebook page. Well today we want to start a new series. I've been working on this series for some time and I have entitled this new series Power praying and we're going to do an extensive study on the Lord's Prayer now if you remember I think it was last January. We did The Sermon on the Mount which is Matthew 5 through 7. And when we got to Matthew 6, I think it was verse 9 I said I'm going to hold off on teaching this because I wanted to do a series. Well your later I've decided to do this series on the Lord's Prayer and we're going to talk about how to be a power praying person. Pray with power. I think all of us would like to do that. Most of us probably would like to play pray more than what we do. So maybe we can learn some things on this series. So today the sermon title today is simply how should I pray? And we going to look at Christ instructions on prayer that he gives his disciples and what he gives us here is he's going to give us a pattern of prayer that we can use in our own life to pray. You know, I've been fascinated for some time with the fact that the disciples they never asked Jesus to teach them to preach. And if you read the Bible, you're also see they never asked him to teach them to tithe. They never said the Lord. Will you show us how to evangelize you show us how the witness they never asked him that they never asked him said Lord, you are the master teacher. Could you please show us? Could you teach us how to teach they never asked him that but the one thing that they did ask him was Lord teach us to pray now. Someone has said that if you want to empty the average Baptist Church, tell them you going to start talkin about prayer and it's because the topic of prayer seems to provoke in a lot of Christians a serious sense of guilt and I can say that even for my own self when I look at my own life if I had to change something about my life, it would be that I would pray more and I'm not talkin about praying. For like you eat or are praying that you know, praying in church at a prayer meeting or something like that. What I'm talkin about here is concentrated daily prayer the time. Did you give to the Lord each and every day to sit down before him and not only to tell him your petitions and to pray for yourself and for others but also to sit quietly and listen to the Lord how many of us actually do that daily that we take the time, you know, one of the reasons I do a daily devotion is because I know a lot of people just don't have time or don't take the time to do it. And of course my devotion is aren't more than 3 or 4 minutes long most of the time but still is something but that's not concentrated prayer. That's kind of more of a thought for the day as I get up and go off to work well I'm not going to try to explain why we don't pray why we can't find time to pray but I would like to look at what Christ said to his disciples when they asked him to teach them how to pray now that it's not in Matthew chapter. 6:11 our talks about the Lord's Prayer also and the disciples came to him and they said Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. So what the Lord does here is he's going to teach us a pattern of prayer and this prayer is recorded in Matthew chapter 6 and I if you have your Bibles, I want you to turn there now Matthew chapter 6 and the prayer is in just verses 9 through 13 only 5 versus but this prayer can be used as a model for our own prayer life. Now, we know that this prayers called The Lord's Prayer, but actually I think we ought to call it the disciples prayer because the Lord is teaching us his disciple. A pattern that we can use the freight now if you really want to read The Lord's Prayer you turn to John chapter 17 that whole chapter is the Lord praying for his disciples in for us and for everyone and that's another study in and of itself but we do call this Lord's Prayer. So that's what we're going to call it today. So let's look at it and Matthew 6 and we going to look at verses 9 through 13. And this is what the Bible says in this manner therefore pray. Now, this is course cry speaking 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 forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation. But Deliver Us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Well not long ago. I read about a daughter of an atheist and this daughter told her friend of hers that she had been brought up not to believe in God, but she said one day I came across the Lord's Prayer and she said that if this God that wrote this prayer really exist. She says I think that I could believe in him there just not anything else in literature quite like the Lord's Prayer. It's a picture of a man and his God and it can only be painted this picture by God. Himself in Christ use it as a means of teaching his followers to pray though. This is one of only around 20 prayers that the Lord pray if you think of other occasions when the Lord pray he prayed on the occasion of his baptism another time, he prayed when he felt the crowds were kind of press pressing in or around him. He prayed the Bible records when he selected the 12 apostles. He prayed in the upper room with the men there. But the Lord's Prayer is his most from in your prayer and actually it occupies a place in the history of the church nearly every Christian has memorized if I remember when I played by baseball in high school that before the game we go down the left-field line and the our coach would lead us in the Lord's Prayer nearly every Christian has memorized it. Some of you probably remember reciting it in in the public school that you went to and a lot of times we hear that weddings and we hear it resided at funerals. It can be heard in hospitals almost every day. A lot of family say it at mealtimes and and a lot of people and you may be one pray at before they go to bed at night. There's only 66 words in it, but it has become the most well-known prayer in all the world and as a result of that hundreds of books have been written about it. Probably about the same number of songs many sermons have been preached on the meaning of the Lord's Prayer and it's just it has become an essential element of the church. Well, most of us If we're honest we struggle not only with how to pray. But with the very thought of prayer itself, I just want you to think about your own life right now. If someone come to you and said would you teach me to pray would you feel confident in doing that telling someone how to pray or do you find the time even the time to pray? That's the hardest thing in the world. It seems like it's just the find the time to have concentrated prayer. And so most of us I would think that we probably found it difficult to maintain a Vibe prayer life will say a prayer before we eat or maybe before we go to bed but concentrated prayer that we take 30 40 minutes each day. Most of the most people just cannot or do not do that. Well, it's been that way All Through the Ages throughout the history of the church. There's they were like two primary groups with differing perspectives on the sovereignty of God. Now one of the groups were called Calvinists, they follow John Calvin and the other one they were called the Armenians now Calvinists. They emphasise the sovereignty of God. In other words. God is over everything and whatever happens he causes it to happen and there's not a whole lot we can do whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Well are minions there different in that they emphasize the Freewheel of man and they say well man, I have also has a part in this is not all God. We have a Freewheel we can make decisions we can make choices. And so this battle has wage back and forth over the years. Well a lot of times somebody someone asked me once what are you are you a Calvin Calvin this or you are Armenian and I say what? I'm a cow minion is what I am a calvinist and arminian. You see the the challenge in prayer is to find a balance between Calvinism which says that it's all God and arminianism which says that it's all us. So, where do we find the balance? How do we discover what airport is in prayer? And what is God's part and you won't find a better teaching than the Lord's Prayer which I think presents a perfect balance it teaches us who God is it teaches us who we are and how we are to come to him. So Jesus offers this Lord's Prayer as a means of teaching us how to pray the first of all he gives us some preliminary instructions, you know, sometimes people ask you how to do something in the first thing you tell him. Well, this is what you do not do Don't do this don't do this. And now you can do this. Well, this is exactly how Jesus handles teaching the disciples how to pray. So here's my first point today on point one. Jesus says don't pray like the Hypocrites. He says don't pray like the Hypocrites now, we see that in Matthew 6 and verse 5 now. Look at what he says here. He says and when you pray, You shall not be like the Hypocrites Greek word hypocrite a if the Greeks called the people who played in dramas and and plays that you could go and watch at the local theater. They called them Hypocrites because they they played a part that really wasn't like they're real life. They were playacting. They were playing a part. He says when you pray you should not be like the Hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the street that they may be be seen by men. I surely I say to you they have their reward you see in Jewish culture of the people were to pray at 3 6 9 and 12 and now here's what the Hypocrites would do. They would they used to plan their day so that at 3:00 in the afternoon. They would be right in the busiest part of town of the village where they could stop and they will be surrounded by people and they would just fall to their knees wherever they When did raise their arms and they would spout out some flowery prayer and their Hope was that all the people around them would notice them and that they would say. Wow. What a what a godly man. This is right here. How devout he is. He just stopped right in the middle of everything just to fall down and pray to God or Jesus warned against that sort of behavior. He says don't be like that because hypocritical praying focus is on position instead of godliness and those who love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners publicly parading their godliness in order to seek a reputation of being some great spiritual man or woman in Jesus said, they were accomplishing nothing. Jesus is saying they may have fooled me again, but they will not fool me and notice what he says at the end. I surely I say to you they Have their reward was not going to be a reward from Heaven is going to be a reward from Earth. In other words people notices them and that's all the reward that they'll have because that's all the reward that they were seeking. You see, the prey hypocritically is to focus on recognition instead of reward that we should always be genuine in the way we come before the Lord in prayer. And if you examine the Lord's Prayer, what you'll find is that Jesus has taken care of every one of the challenges related to hypocritical pray. Now, look what he says in Matthew 6:6 not notice what he says he says but you speaking of the disciples When you pray go into your room the King James says closet which is a good translation go into your closet and when you have shut your door pray to your father who is in The Secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly you see. Jesus is saying if you enter your closet, you cannot be praying before men in other words, if you're home at night and you have a closet a big walk-in closet and maybe if there's carpet on the floor, there's nothing wrong for you to go in there with your Bible and the set there and pray to the father. No one will see you. You see you're not trying to be recognized by people. You go into your closet and you shut the door you shut everyone else out. The only one who's going to listen is the one to whom you should be praying to anyway, which is the Father and Jesus also says we should pray to the father not to others. I look what he says. He says pray to your father who is in the secret place. So when we enter the closet and shut the door we shut out all temptation to posture before men just so that they can see us and so will look spiritual pray to God. In secret you see he's warning us against praying like a hypocrite and one preacher said that there's too many Christians that play that pray like the hen who lays eggs in secret then she cackled so loud. She announces where she is and what she's doing. Well, that's not the way that attitude. We should have toward prayer The Lord's Prayer is not a self-centered prayer matter fact, you get halfway through the Lord's prayer before any thought is given to our own needs and we'll we'll go through this phrase by phrase in the coming weeks. And and even when we see these needs they're not personal, but they are corporate now. I want you to look here. And we'll go back to Matthew chapter 6. And verses 9 through 13 and look look at how the Lord says if he says in this manner therefore pray Our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name. Then he says your kingdom come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven now watch out starts out inverse left. It says here. It says give us this day our daily bread. You see this is not a self-centered personal prayer. This is more of a corporate prayer. He says that we are to say my fault not my father, but our father is not my daily bread, but it is our daily bread. And then he says forgive fought for give me no forgive us as we forgive our you see how Corporate it is and then it says and do not lead us into temptation. He doesn't say me. He says us he says Deliver Us from the evil one. So we see hear the prayer removes us from all natural self-centeredness. God is not some Heavenly bellhop given us all the stuff that we want when we pray we enter into God's presence in our prayers are centered on Camp in prominent praying in public posturing are not part of God's list of prerequisites for the effectiveness of prayer. You see prayer is intimate and personal communication with the god that we love it reflects our relationship to him and it Matthew 6 the Lord desires that we communicate with him in an intimate and personal way not like the Hypocrites. So he says in Port point one when you pray don't pray like the Hypocrites. Well, he says this he says when you pray Don't pray like the Heathen now. Look what the Bible says here in verses 7 & 8 the Bible says and when you pray do not use vain repetitions as the Heathen do for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. So God wants us to talk to him in the same way that we would talk to the most precious store closest one of our relatives where there's a child or spouse you see God wants a personal relationship with each of us now, you know many times and you probably heard it in church before you go to church and and somebody will pray and they'll just pray this big long prayer drawn-out and they'll say God. The lordis and father this and they'll keep on and on and on saying father and Lord, you know that they don't talk like that in real life. It's almost like they're using the lord's name as a punctuation mark and they say it at the first of the sentence the end of the sentence and all in between and you see occasionally, you know, people pray like that in order to sound holy and a lot of people come from what they called liturgical churches and one of the challenges that they faced many people use a prayer book and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the prayer book, that's fine. And it's kinda it just really Gates their conversations with God to something that is already written down and prescribed and they kind of offers these wrote prayer for any occasions people may face if you're grieving than there is a prayer over here written down for a grieving person. If you're anxious, you can find the fair in the book about anxiety and you know, Someone good with words has written down a prayer for about everything and you can carry it around with it and use it at the right moment when you need it. Now, I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with riding prayers. Nothing is wrong with that. But too often these sorts of prayers don't come from the heart They Don't Really represent who we really are and it's just so easy to allow these prayer to be as the Lord says here vain repetitions. Just reciting a prayer just for the sake of reciting it. I was reading the other way. Did you know that in Tibet? There are millions of people Who write down their prayers on paper and then connect them to like wheels on a bicycle? And the idea is supposed to be that every time the wheel goes around. That means that God hears their prayer. The phrase Basquiat Spain reputat represent Titian the true God doesn't want vain repetition the Lord wants communication. He desires that we put our heart into our prayers and to use just the word that we would use if we're talkin to a loved one. Now. There's nothing wrong with long prayers. There's nothing wrong with repetition in prayer Jesus. The Bible says used to pray all night. Well, that was a long prayer when he was in The Garden of Gethsemane. He used repetition in his prayer. It's okay, but don't use repetition and don't use long prayers just to impress other people and don't think that your worthiness or the length of your prayer. That God is going to hear you more or answer your prayer in the way that you want it simply because you prayed long drawn-out vain repetitions prayer. That's not the case. He wants us he wants a relationship with us and he wants us to share our heart with him in the language and in the words that we use in our everyday speech matter fact when he says vain repetition there that Greek word means to Bible and Jesus is saying don't just Bible along and Lourdes Lourdes in Jesus father God and on and on and on and on he don't want us to do that. He don't want us to think that the length of our prayers is going to get on the good side with him. We're not to Bible like that. So don't pray like the Hypocrites number one and then secondly, he says what don't pray like the Heathen as well with these long drawn-out. Valerie words in vain repetitions. There's one more point. I wanted to share with you today and is simply this. pray, like Your hero now who's our hero where our hero is Jesus and when we pray like him. Like the manner that he is giving us here. We are scribing honor and glory to him. Remember I said that there's one problem in the Bible is sin. There's one villain in the Bible is Satan. There's one Gyro in the Bible is Jesus and there's one purpose of the Bible and that's the glory of God. So when we pray don't pray like the Hypocrites don't play pray like the Heathen but pray like your hero Jesus when we study the Lord's Prayer here. I think we learned some of the greatest truths of theology now notice the emphasis on God in the first three petitions here. Now, I'm going to go back to it. I put it on the screen. I hope you have your Bible. He says in this manner therefore pray Our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name. He says then he says your kingdom come then. He says your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. And then the second part of the prayer turns his attention to man and his poverty. You see we need God to provide us bread and we see forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors do not lead us into temptation. Give us this day our daily bread and we need his guidance away from Temptation. We need his protection from the evil one. You see God has all the glory in the power and we have all the needs and poverty. He has everything and we have nothing and it is wonderful to be able to come with empty hands to the one who's able to give us everything that we need friend that is flopped. Our praying is all about it as we work through the Lord's Prayer. We going to see that it reveals kind of the cycle of Life. Remember, you know, he says here. He says in this man afraid our father. He says in heaven it begins with praise. He says Hallowed be your name. So it begins with praise and then it moves from praise to Priority. He says die Kingdom your kingdom come your will be done and then it moves from priorities to provision. He says give us this day our daily bread and then it moves from provision the personal relationship. He says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and then from personal relationship. It moves to protection. He says lead us not into temptation, but Deliver Us from the evil one. So he prays for protection and then of course the prayer hands with a promise or he says for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. You see the Lord's Prayer reminds us that God Longs for his people to communicate with him. Not just in church on Sundays, but it all time each and every day he wants us to talk to him as we would talk to anyone that we love and respect, you know is I think about this and I think of my own life there is much in our lives that would improve if we would only pray. If we would take the time to pray many of the problems that we face which seemed immense when we try to handle them in our own power many of those will diminish when we allow the Lord to move on our behalf, you know to Austin you will hear people say well, I've tried everything I know what to do. I guess the only things left I'm just going to pray about it over and when you do that, you just reduced to talk into the most powerful influence in the world. And that's the first thing that we ought to always do when we pray we get in touch with almighty God the creator of this universe now don't misunderstand me here. Simply reciting the Lord's Prayer is not a magic wand which is waved in front of all problems to make them disappear matter fact when the Lord said because a lot of people will pray this prayer and there's nothing wrong with praying it everyday if you would like there's nothing wrong with that but notice what he says in verse 9 Jesus didn't say no When you pray say these exact words, that's not what he said. He says when you pray in this manner, he said in other words when you pray use this pattern all of us have we're at different places in our spiritual life and we have different friends of different vocations. We're all going through different things your prayers not going to be like mine. So he's not telling us to say these exact words. He's just given us a pattern to follow and that pattern is Praise Him First and thing Kim for what he's done, and then it leads us into our own petition and then it leads us into interceding on the behalf of other people. You see he saying just pray in this manner. There's much more to developing a prayer life than merely reciting the Lord's Prayer. You see if we get the truth of the Lord's Prayer into our hearts and Minds it will change our lives and if we can pray it with sincerity and integrity, who knows we may be able to launch the next great Revival in our land and if there was ever a nation or land that needed Revival is ours right now with the political and social unrest that we're going through we need a movement from Heaven the change our nation in the way we can get that is we need to get in contact with the god of Heaven for at the heart of the Lord's Prayer is the meaning of hygge. Body is in what he Longs for his children to be well, I hope you look forward to this journey that we're going to take today was just an overview of the Lord's Prayer and what we going to do beginning. Next Sunday is we're going to take each individual phrase of the Lord's Prayer. And we going to dig deep into it and try to find out exactly the pattern of prayer that we should use also this coming Wednesday night. We're going to have we going to continue our Zoom meetings and Jenny has been good enough to to host these meetings. And so we're going to start at 7 p.m. The next Wednesday. And what I want to do is I want to continue this series not The sermons that I'm going to preach on Sundays, but I want to do a practical study on prayer. I mean the nuts and bolts of praise and worship in intercession and how we are to do it in some of the some of the principles that we can use to be a power prayer and we going to do that is on Wednesday nights and it's going to be very practical. So I hope that you can enjoy it. Join us for that as well. So how should I pray where the Lord has given us the manner in which the we are to pray and we're going to take this up again next Sunday. Well, I hope everyone has a great week and I hope to see you Wednesday night and let's close in a word of prayer father. We do. Thank you and Praise You In Love You Tonight Lord and today and Lord. We just thank you for everything that you've done for us Lord. We thank you as we continue to study this Lord's prayer Lord that you would teach us how to pray Lord maybe that we could take someone in sometime and teach them how to pray Lord. I pray that this will be a very practical study Force Lord. I pray that it will draw us closer to you. I pray that it would make us more like Jesus and Lord. I pray that we would get your attention in heaven that you would open up the window. The doors of Heaven for your blessings down upon this nation that is falling further and further away from you Lord. I pray for each one that it's listening to this Lord. I pray that you would stoke the fire within them right now that we're going to this new year. We're going to change. We're going to be we going to pray with power. We're going to learn to pray and we're going to call on you and see what the wonderful things that you would do for us forcing Christ's name. I do pray. Amen. Well, I hope to see everyone Wednesday night and I hope you have a great rest of the weekend.