S.O.T.M. How to Pray [Matthew 6:5-8]

We come to the second example given of our Lord to illustrate His teaching concerning the religious life of the Christian. The first illustration was on giving which was to be done before God and not before man. The next illustration is on the matter of praying to God, our communion with God, and our fellowship with God, the principle remains the same, done before God not men. We will be studying this section on prayer for a few weeks because it has the greatest emphasis placed upon it by our Lord. You’ll notice in the section on giving our Lord tells us do not do this do not do this…on the section on fasting the same do not do this do not do this…but in this section on prayer He says do not do this do not do this…but goes on to say here’s how you pray and then proceeds to give us great detail on the mode and manner of prayer. So we’ll be camping out here a few weeks.

Stand for the reading of the word of God [Matthew 6:5-8]

This portion of Scripture, I sometimes think, is one of the most searching and humbling in the entire realm of Scripture. But we can read these verses in such a way as really to miss their entire point and teaching, and certainly without coming under conviction. The tendency always when reading this is just to regard it as an exposure of the Pharisees, a denunciation of the obvious hypocrite. We read, and we think of the kind of ostentatious person who obviously is calling attention to himself, as the Pharisees did in this matter. We therefore regard it as just an exposure of this blatant hypocrisy without any relevance to ourselves. But that is to miss the whole point of the teaching here, which is our Lord’s devastating exposure of the terrible effects of sin upon the human soul, and especially sin in the form of self and of pride. That is the teaching.

Here our Lord shows us that sin is something which follows us all the way, even into the very presence of God. Sin is not merely something that tends to attack and afflict us when we are far away from God. Sin is something so terrible, according to our Lord’s exposure of it, that it will not only follow us to the gates of heaven, but—if it were possible—into heaven itself. What do the Scripture teach with regard to the origin of sin? Sin is not something which began on earth. Before man fell there had been a previous Fall. Satan was a perfect, bright, angelic being dwelling in the heavenlies; and he had fallen before ever man fell.

That is the essence of the teaching of our Lord in these verses. It is a terrible exposure of the horrible nature of sin. Nothing is quite so wrong as to think of sin only in terms of actions; and as long as we think of sin only in terms of things actually done, we fail to understand it fully. The essence of the biblical teaching on sin is that it is essentially a disposition. It is a state of heart. I suppose we can sum it up by saying that sin is ultimately self-worship and self-admiration; and our Lord shows (what to me is an alarming and terrifying thing) this tendency on our part to self-admiration is something that follows us even into the very presence of God. It sometimes produces this result; that even when we try to persuade ourselves that we are worshipping God, we are actually worshipping ourselves and doing nothing more.

That is the terrible nature of His teaching at this point. This thing that has entered into our very nature and constitution as human beings, is something that is so polluting our whole being that when man is engaged in his highest form of activity he still has a battle to wage with sin. I think that the highest picture that you can ever have of man is to look at him on his knees waiting upon God. That is the highest achievement of man, it is his noblest activity. Man is never greater than when he is there in communion and contact with God. Now, according to our Lord, sin is something which affects us so profoundly that even at that point it is with us and attacking us. I do believe that on the basis of New Testament teaching that it is only there we really begin to understand sin.

Don’t we tend to think of sin as we see it in its rags and in the gutters of life. We look at a drunkard, addict, the criminal, etc., and we say: There is sin; that is sin. But that is not the essence of sin. To have a real picture and a true understanding of it, you must look at some great saint, some unusually devout and devoted man. Look at him there upon his knees in the very presence of God. Even there sin and self is intruding, and the temptation is for him to think about himself, and really to be worshipping himself rather than God.

That, not the other, is the true picture of sin. The other is sin, of course, but there you do not see it in its essence. Or, to put it in another form, if you really want to understand something about the nature of Satan and his activities, the thing to do is not to go to the slums or the gutters of life; if you really want to know something about Satan, go away to that wilderness where our Lord spent forty days and forty nights. That is the true picture of Satan where you see him tempting the very Son of God. All that comes out in this statement. Sin is something that follows us even into the very presence of God.

If this picture does not persuade us of our own utter sinfulness, of our hopelessness as well as our helplessness, if it does not make us see our need of the grace of God in the matter of salvation, and the necessity of forgiveness, rebirth and a new nature, then I know of nothing that ever can persuade us of it. Here we see a mighty argument for the New Testament doctrine about the absolute necessity of being born again, because sin is a matter of disposition, something that is so profound and so vitally a part of us that it even accompanies us into the presence of God.

The New Testament doctrine of regeneration and the nature of the new man in Christ Jesus is essential. Indeed we can go on even beyond that and say that even if we are born again, and even if we have received a new life and a new nature, we still need these instructions. This is our Lord’s instruction to Christian people, not to the non-Christian. It is His warning to those who have been born again; even they have to be careful lest in their prayers and devotions they become guilty of this hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

So let’s consider what our Lord teaches us on prayer, we might call this an introduction on how to pray. We see there is a false way of approaching prayer a right way of approaching prayer and we’ll also look at the pattern of prayer from verse 5-8. [outline in bulletin] First...

The wrong way of approaching prayer

Essentially the wrong way of approaching prayer is when its concentration is upon self. Concentrating all my attention on the one who is praying and not the one whom the prayer is offered to is the wrong way to pray. That is the real trouble our Lord shows us here in a very graphic way. He says, ‘Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.’

You remember our Lord’s parable of the Pharisee and the publican who went into the temple to pray. He makes exactly the same point there. He tells us that the Pharisee stood as far forward as he could in the most prominent place, and there he prayed. The publican, on the other hand, was so ashamed and full of contrition that ‘standing afar off’ he could not even so much as lift up his face to heaven, but beat his chest and just cried out, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ In the same way our Lord says here that the Pharisees stand in the synagogues and in the corners of the street, in the most prominent position, and pray in order that they may be seen of men. ‘Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.’

According to our Lord the reason for their praying is to impress upon others just how devout and devoted to God he is. This person is not concerned with the things of God but more interested in getting praised by men himself, we see the sinful self here. This is where self examination really comes in to play. Are you known as a great prayer warrior? If so how is it you are known for that? Is it because you’ve put on a show of being prayerful??? This should make us not stop praying but stop and examine our motives in prayer. Do you long be known as a person of prayer? You should but why? Is it because we get to approach God in prayer or is it to get noticed by others? We should desire to be people of prayer, but we must always check our motives, because sin and self is always lurking ready to invade our thoughts. How many refuse to pray publically in fear of what other people might think of their prayer?

Another wrong way of approaching prayer is thinking that the efficiency of my prayer depends upon how much I pray or the manner in which I pray. Our Lord says, “they think they’ll be heard by their much speaking” This really is another subtle form of desiring to be seen by others. Not only is it wrong to parade oneself around going in to a prominent position and drawing attention to oneself in prayer. There is also this subtle quite sense of drawing attention to oneself in how much and the manner of our prayer.

I’m not trying to make light or poke fun of anyone but I’ve been around some who have been almost boastful of how much they pray and even how effectively they pray. They may not have been so eager to study the word of God well but they have prayed well. I’d say that if perhaps they studied the word of God better they may have been able to cut down on the time in which they spent praying. Martin Luther, the great reformer said, “the man who has studied God’s word well has prayed well.” He understood that prayer is approaching God, and when we pray it’s us talking to God... bible study is God speaking to us through His word. And I don’t know about you, but I need God speaking to me more than I need to be speaking to Him. Study well you’ve prayed well.

Let’s take it a little farther, if our public prayers are more aimed at having an effect upon the people present rather than to approach God with reverence and fear we’ve missed the point of prayer. I hesitate to even say this because I’ve caught myself in it, but how we often in our public prayers we offer so-called ‘beautiful prayers’. Like I said I wrestled with even mentioning this because it’s a debatable question. I’m not speaking against anyone who pays attention to the words they say and the phrases we use and speak in a polished manner, we should pay attention to what we say before God. What I’m suggesting is that there is this sense in which as the church we have become so polished and polite and dignified in our prayers that the supposed worshippers are unconsciously occupied with themselves and forget they are in communion with the living God.

I’m just saying if we are not careful we can so easily get into the habit of following a routine of prayer and forget what we are really doing. Just as Muslims fall to their knees at certain hours of the day out of routine, we too as Christians can easily get into the same habit and routine of praying at certain times of the day, at certain times of the worship service, and in certain ways, using certain phrases and forget to just have communion with God. As I have said before this section of the sermon on the mount is truly humbling.

So let’s turn then to

The proper way of approaching prayer

So the whole secret in this matter of approaching God in prayer can be stated in terms of the essential principle…that is when we pray anytime and anywhere we must realize we are approaching God. This one thing is what matters this, simply realizing we are approaching God in prayer. That understanding should keep our prayers proper before God. But we need a little more detail than that, and fortunately our Lord gives it. He divides it up in what we’ll call...

The pattern of prayer

To make sure that I realize I am approaching God I have to exclude certain things. I have to enter into that closet and shut the door and pray to our Father in secret…now what does that mean exactly? First, this is not a prohibition to prayer meetings or prayer in public because that is taught by God and in scripture. There are prayer meetings recorded in the Scriptures, and they are of the very essence and life of the Church. That is not what He is prohibiting. The principle is that there are certain things which we have to shut out whether we are praying in public or whether we are praying in secret. Here’s are three of them.

First is exclusion: You shut out and forget other people. Then you shut out and forget yourself. That is not to say that I don’t pray for people, we obviously pray for people, but to don’t pray to impress people, we pray to God for people. That is what is meant by entering into thy closet. You can enter into that closet when you are walking alone in a busy street, or going from one room to another in a house, or when you are at work. You enter into that closet when you are in communion with God and nobody knows what you are doing. If it is an actual public act of prayer the same thing can be done. For example, what I try to do when I enter the pulpit in prayer is to forget the congregation in a certain sense. I am not praying to you or addressing you; I am not speaking to you. I am speaking to God, I am leading in prayer to God, so I have to shut out and forget people.

Yes; and having done that, I shut out and forget myself. That is what our Lord tells us to do. There is no value in my entering into the secret chamber and locking the door if the whole time I am full of self and thinking about myself, and am priding myself on my prayer. I might as well be standing at the street corner putting on a show. No; I have to exclude myself as well as other people; my heart has to be open entirely and only to God. I must say as the Psalmist: ‘Unite my heart to fear thy name. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart.’ This is of the very essence of this matter of prayer. When we pray we must deliberately remind ourselves that we are going to talk to God. Therefore other people, and self also, must be excluded and locked out.

Next is realization: Realize what? We must realize that we are in the presence of God. What does that mean? It means realization of something of who God is and what God is. Before we begin to utter words we always ought to do this. We should say to ourselves: ‘I am now entering into the audience chamber of that God, the almighty, the absolute, the eternal and great God with all His power and His might and majesty, that God who is a consuming fire, that God who is “light and in whom is no darkness at all”, that utter, absolute Holy God. That is what I am doing.’ We must recollect and realize all that. We must also, our Lord insists that we should realize that, in addition to that, He is our Father.

The relationship is that of Father and child, ‘for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.’ O that we realized this! If only we realized that this almighty God is our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. If only we realized that we are indeed His children and that whenever we pray it is like a child going to its father! He knows all about us; He knows our every need before we tell Him. As the father cares for the child and looks at the child, and is concerned about the child, and anticipates the needs of the child, so is God with respect to all those who are in Christ Jesus. He desires to bless us very much more than we desire to be blessed. He has a view of us, He has a plan and a program for us, He has an ambition for us, I say it with reverence, which transcends our highest thought and imagination. We must remember that He is our Father. The great, the holy, the almighty God is our Father. He cares for us. He has counted the very hairs of our head. He has said that nothing can happen to us apart from Him.

Then we must remember what Paul puts so gloriously in Ephesians 3: He ‘is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.’ That is the true notion of prayer, says Christ. You do not go through a ritual. You do not just count some beads. You do not say: ‘I must spend hours in prayer, I have decided to do it and I must do it.’ You do not say that the way to get a blessing is to spend whole nights in prayer, and that because people will not do so they cannot expect blessing. We must get rid of this mathematical notion of prayer. We don’t spin the wheel or rub the lamp to get something from God that we want. What we have to do first of all is to realize who God is, what He is, and our relationship to Him. God wants to bless us…with that truth in mind...

... we can have confidence. We approach God with simple confidence and in childlike faith. We need this assurance that God is truly our Father in Christ Jesus and get rid of this notion that in order to get God’s attention I have to go on repeating myself over and over…almost trying to pester God into giving in to my demands or in order to produce a blessing. God wants us to show desire over that in which we pray for. He tells us to hunger and thirst for righteousness, He tells us to pray and not to grow weary, He tells us to to pray without ceasing. It doesn’t mean I beg God for what I want. It means that when I pray I know that God is my Father, and that He delights to bless me, and that He is much more ready to give than I am to receive and that He is always concerned about my welfare. I must get rid of this thought that God is standing between me and my desires and that which is best for me. I must see God as my Father who has purchased my ultimate good in Christ, and is waiting to bless me with His own fullness in Christ Jesus.

So, we exclude, we realize, and then in confidence we make our requests known to God, knowing He knows all about it before we begin to speak. Just as an earthly father delights when his children come to him so our heavenly Father delights when we come into His presence. But we must not come with doubtful minds; we must know that God is much more ready to give than we are to receive. The result will be that ‘thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.’ O the blessings that are stored at the right hand of God for God’s children that we miss because of our fear and doubt and lack of simple childlike faith in our heavenly Father.

If we would just fall upon this truth proclaimed by our Lord Jesus I believe we would agree with D.L. Moody who said, “if we would but live in this simple childlike confidence in our heavenly Father we would feel that the numerous blessings lavished upon us by God would be so great our physical frames could not bear them and we’d cry out God stop.” God is able to do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. Let us believe that and then go to Him in simple confidence. we will pick this matter of prayer up again next week…let’s pray.