Preacher: Erik Meyers

Date: April 5, 2020

Series: Prayer

Text: Matthew 6:5-6

Introduction

After looking back over last week’s sermon, which was an overview of prayer, I regret that it wasn’t better organized. Hopefully, more clearly now, let me summarize its content:

In Ephesians 2:18 Paul writes “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Here’s what Paul is saying – Through Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit Christians have access to God the Father (and I would add) in prayer. And so prayer is conversation with God, by which we approach God and speak to Him.

Prayer would be impossible without Jesus (our mediator) first reconciling us to God. And prayer would be impossible without the Holy Spirit helping us to rightly see ourselves, God, and the Gospel. This is basically how John Bunyan defined prayer – “[Prayer] is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit.” And so again – Through Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit we have access to God the Father in prayer.

And now building on that foundation, we are going to turn to Matthew 6:5-13 where the Lord Jesus himself teaches us how to pray. Most of us are familiar with this text, or have even memorized it; we know it as “The Lord’s Prayer.”

And for the purpose of preaching through it I’ve identified three parts: In vv5-8 we have prerequisites of prayer. In verse 9 we have a preface to prayer. And then in vv10-13 we have petitions in prayer. So that’s three parts: Prerequisites (vv5-8), Preface (v9), and Petition (vv10-13).

So we’ll begin today with the prerequisites of prayer. There are two of them, and this sermon will only tackle the first.

Now, before we get to tackling, remember this is God’s Word we’re studying, and in God’s Word alone we learn who we are, who God is, and most importantly, what God has done to bring us to himself. But we will only understand this if God gives us spiritual discernment. And so let me begin with prayer.

If you haven’t already, open your Bibles to Matthew 6.

For those of you who don’t know how to pray this might be the best place in the Bible to start because Jesus himself teaches us. Imagine that? Have you seen “Master Class” on the internet? They have different classes where you can be a taught a particular discipline by an expert on that discipline. So we’re about to start a Master Class on prayer, taught by Jesus.

And we’ll begin in verse 6 where Jesus introduces us to the kind of prayer he’s talking about.

Private prayer

This kind of praying described by Jesus is private prayer; or secret prayer. I say “kind” because this is not the only “kind” of prayer; there are other ways to pray. There is public prayer, and church prayer, and family prayer, and continuous prayer. But here Jesus is talking about private prayer.

This is praying that, according to David McIntyre, requires a quiet place, a quiet hour, and a quiet heart. Christians commonly describe private prayer today as a quiet time or a personal devotion.

Jesus describes it this way in verse 6: 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.

Jesus practiced this kind of prayer himself. We’re told in Luke 5:15-16 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

In 1665 the Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote an entire book on Matthew 6:6 entitled “The Private Key to Heaven.” In it he described private prayer like this: “Oh the sweet meltings, the heavenly warmings, the blessed cheerings, the glorious manifestations, and the choice communion with God, that Christians have found when they have been alone with God in a corner, in a closet, behind the door!”

Early church bishop Ambrose wrote “I am never less alone than when I am alone; for there I can enjoy the presence of my God most freely, fully, and sweetly, without interruption.”

You see, private prayer is more than praying privately. It is communing with God. It is intimately relating to God. One of the reformers described it as “like a child, crawling up into the lap of God.”

Hebrews 4:15 describes Jesus as our High Priest who has given us access to God which then lead us to, verse 16, with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

In private prayer, a Christian draws near to the throne of grace. And we do that, Hebrews tells us, with confidence. That means that we speak openly and honestly and frankly to God.

Psalm 27:8 You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” Private prayer is seeking the face of God. Private prayer is after a personal encounter with the living God.

This kind of encounter with God through prayer is described by Paul in Ephesians 3:14-19 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend [grasp!] with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

That can happen through private prayer. Tim Keller writes: “[Paul] does not see prayer as merely a way to get things from God but as a way to get more of God himself.”

This is the private, secret prayer that Jesus is describing in Matthew 6. Do you regularly seek a quiet place, a quiet time, and a quiet heart before God? If you do seek it, do you regularly find it?

For some of you, this kind of prayer has become a regular part of your life. Like breathing is to your body, private prayer is to your soul. But for many of you, these descriptions of personal encounters with God through prayer sound strange; maybe even impossible.

I said last week at the beginning of the sermon that Christians today are hard pressed to find an activity that is more personally difficult, and more easily obstructed, than prayer. Aren’t there endless obstacles to this kind of prayer? Let me bring up and address just three.

Some of you are disinterested in private prayer

Why are you disinterested? It could be that you are cynical. Cynical toward others and cynical toward God. You doubt he hears, you doubt he answers, you doubt you’ll change or that others will change, and so what’s the point.

Paul Miller writes this in his excellent book called “A Praying Life”: “To ask God for change confronts us with our doubt about whether prayer makes any difference. Is change even possible? Doesn’t God control everything? If so, what’s the point? Because it is uncomfortable to feel our unbelief, to come face-to-face with our cynicism, we dull our souls with the narcotic of activity.”

Or maybe you’re disinterested because you fear of intimacy with God. Maybe you avoid intimacy with others as well. You might be fearful of entrusting yourself to God. You might be fearful of what could be exposed in your own soul.

But you need private prayer. This is not a “have to” but a “need to.” Thomas Brooks said private prayer is the believers daily “meat and drink.” Let me quote him at length. His words might spark interest in you:

“Consider that in times of great straits and trials, in times of great afflictions and persecutions, private prayer is the Christian’s meat and drink; it is his chief city of refuge; it is his shelter and hiding-place in a stormy day (Jeremiah 31:1-3)… When iron and devils have done their worst, every Christian will be able to maintain his private trade with heaven…When a man is lying upon a sick-bed alone, or when a man is in prison alone, or when a man is with Job left upon the dunghill alone, or when a man is with John banished for the testimony of Jesus into this or that island alone, oh, then private prayer will be his meat and drink, his shelter, his hiding-place, his heaven. When all other trades fail, this trade of private prayer will hold good.”

Or maybe it’s worse. Maybe you’re disinterested in private prayer because you’re disinterested in God himself. If that’s the case, you may not be a Christian. Read the Word of God and ask the Spirit of God to impress it on your heart.

Some of you are too busy for private prayer

At least you think you’re too busy.

Wasn’t it Martin Luther that said “I’m too busy not to pray.” You’re busy and you have so much to get done. How can you spare 15 minutes in private prayer? If you’re so busy, how could you not?

Some practical advice

First, make time for prayer. Your soul needs it. The best version of yourself at work, at school, with your kids is the version that spends time in private prayer. Paul Miller wrote: You [and God] need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can’t get to know God on the fly. If Jesus has to pull away from people and noise in order to pray, then it makes sense that we need to as well.”

My personally tendency is to neglect private prayer because it doesn’t feel “productive.” I am task oriented to a fault. And so it’s good for me to remember that “prayer is productive.” As Oswald Chambers wisely said “Prayer does not prepare us for greater work; prayer is the greater work.” But also, every minute I spend praying means less time to complete my tasks which is a good thing; because it forces me to rely on God.

And second, consider spending time in private prayer before the busy starts, in the morning. That has been the proven practice of countless believers for 2000 years. John Bunyan wrote “He who runs from God in the morning seldom finds him the rest of the day.” If busyness is your biggest obstacle there is an entire chapter devoted to this in Thomas Brooks’ old book ‘The Secret Key to Heaven’ as well as Paul Miller’s ‘A Praying Life.’

Some of you are easily distracted in or from private prayer

Difficult to focus (John Bunyan) “May I but speak my own experience, and from that tell you the difficulty of praying to God as I ought… For, as for my heart, when I go to pray, I find it [hates] to go to God, and when it is with him, [it hates] to stay with him, that many times I am forced in my prayers; first to beg God that he would take mine heart, and set it on himself in Christ, and when it is there, that he would keep it there (Psalm 86:11)… Oh the starting-holes that the heart hath in time of prayer! None knows how many by-ways the heart hath, and back-lanes, to slip away from the presence of God.

Here’s the ultimate solution to these problems and we learned it last week. We need the Holy Spirit’s help. David McIntyre writes “so the poor soul that is pulling and tugging with his own heart he finds it heavy and dull, like a log in a ditch, and he can do not good with it, till at last the Spirit of God comes at the other end, and takes the heaviest end of the burden, and so helps the soul to lift it up.” (Ambrose, Prima Media et Ultima, p.333)

Okay, I hope we understand private prayer now; that it is the kind of prayer Jesus is calling us to, and teaching us how to do, in these verses. Now we’re ready to go back to verse 5 and read it with verse 6 and quickly see the first prerequisite to prayer.

First prerequisite – sincerity

Matthew 6:5-6 “And when you pray, you must not [so here’s what not to do] 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. For hypocrites, they are concerned with the outer life not the inner life. And so their prayers go out and not up. The reward they receive is the admiration and approval of man.

Here’s how we should pray, and this private prayer, verse 6: 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. For the one who prays in private, they are concerned primarily with the inner life. And so there prayers go up and not out. They reward they receive is fellowship with God.

So what is the prerequisite to prayer here? Sincerity. The entire chapter is actually concerned with sincerity.

Secret prayer distinguishes sincerity from hypocrisy. We should be motivated by a desire to please God and not others. Secret prayer reveals whether your relationship with God is distant or intimate.

The English word “sincere” is derived from two Latin words, sine cera, meaning without wax. Long ago, dishonest potters would hide defects in their work with wax. More honest potters would label their work sine cera meaning ‘without wax.’ What you see is what you get. Nothing hidden here.

This is the prerequisite to private prayer. No wax. No pretense. No hiding. No hypocrisy. Sincerity.

Conclusion

Now, in conclusion, where does this sincerity come from? To be sincere in prayer is to be genuine and real. It is to say what you mean and mean what you say.

But what if you don’t genuinely want to pray? You should praise God and thank God in prayer but you don’t feel praise for God or thankfulness for what he’s done.

Sincerity toward God in prayer springs from our understanding of the gospel.

The gospel is the good news that Jesus came, lived, suffered, died, and rose from the dead, in our place so that we could be reconciled to God. The more I understand that, the more I know that, the more I feel that, the more sincere will I be in my prayers.

In the early chapters of his exposition of the Christian faith, The Institutes of Christian Religion, John Calvin argues that you may know a lot about God, but you don’t truly know God until the knowledge of what he has done for you in Jesus Christ has changed the fundamental structure of your heart. “For the Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart . . . the heart’s distrust is greater than the mind’s blindness. It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance [of God’s love] than for the mind to be endowed with thought.” When the gospel does take root in the heart, the sign of it is that Christians are led to “establish their complete happiness in him.” Unless people experience this, “they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.” You don’t have true saving knowledge of God until you long to know and serve him. Such a soul “restrains itself from sinning, not out of dread of punishment alone; but because it loves and reveres God as Father. . . . Even if there were no hell, it would still shudder at offending him.”