HOW NOT TO PRAY

Introduction

-{Matthew 6}

-Our world has become either very consumer friendly and cautious, or (more than likely) it has become so sue happy that companies have to put massive amounts of warning labels on their products even to the point of the ridiculous.

-For example:

~On a washing machine, on the inside of the door, there was a warning DO NOT PUT ANY PERSON IN THIS WASHER {Just in case you wanted to take a short-cut in getting your kids clean}

~On a package of those iron-on decals for t-shirts, they had to give the warning: DO NOT IRON WHILE WEARING SHIRT {Just in case you were tempted to burn yourself silly}

~On a clothes hanger from a local cleaner that has that paper cover over it, there was this warning: CAUTION! DO NOT SWALLOW! {I guess, just in case you got the munchies and nothing else was around, so you just grab a clothes hanger and start to snack on it}

~On a brand new scooter, there was a warning label THIS PRODUCT MOVES WHEN USED (well, duh)

~On a hair dryer there was a warning label DO NOT USE WHILE SLEEPING {in case you sleep walk and decide to dry your hair…}

~On a can of pepper spray there was the warning label MAY IRRITATE EYES (and I thought that was kind of the point)

-Unfortunately, you know why 90% of those warning labels are on there? Because some fool actually tried to do it. (Oh, this looks like fun…)

-Thankfully, not all warnings are so superfluous, but there are some warnings that are given that are very helpful and we would do well to take heed and listen and avoid what we are warned against.

-In Scripture Jesus gives us many warnings that we need to listen to. These are not silly, useless warning labels we find on products, but are for our good and benefit.

-And one set of warnings that we would do well to heed regard prayer. I have been doing a series on prayer over the summer, and we find today’s passage in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ is telling people how to live according to Kingdom principles. And in the specific passage we are looking at, Jesus taught that being a kingdom-minded Christian entails having right views on prayer.

-So today, we learn that there are pitfalls that we are warned against that make our prayers offensive to God. If we want God to hear and answer, we ought to avoid these pitfalls. In a sense, Jesus is telling us how not to pray.

READ MATTHEW 6:5-8

Matthew 6:5–8 ESV

5 “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. 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. 7 “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. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

What are the pitfalls we need to be wary of:

1) Don’t pray to put on a show

-in vv. 5 & 6, Jesus warns against being a hypocrite with regard to prayer. A hypocrite was someone who did play acting. They were a pretender—they played a role in a story, but it was all make-believe. Just think of the actors of our day—Robert Downey Jr. isn’t really Iron Man, he’s just playing a role.

-Jesus warns against being an actor, a pretender. He warns against playing the role of a spiritual person in front of others when it is not a reflection of who you really are.

~When it comes to Christianity, and specifically here when it comes to prayer, you aren’t trying out for an Oscar.

~But that’s not really what hypocrites are after anyway. Hypocrites are after the accolades and the fame and the at-a-boys from other people. They want people to think of them a certain way even though it’s not who they really are.

-And so, in Jesus’ day the religious leaders would make sure that they would pray in front of other people so that the crowd would look on them in awe at how spiritual and articulate they were. They prayed in order to be seen by people and receive from people what their heart really desired—the applause of men.

-For a little more context, what would happen in Jesus’ day is that there would be normal times of prayer throughout the day, and in the bigger cities sometimes there would be a trumpet that would sound indicating that it was time for prayer, so the pious Jews would stop what they were doing and pray at that time.

~But now, the Jewish leaders knew what time during the day those prayers would happen, so they would time their daily activities so that they would just “happen to be” at the busiest intersection in town so they could stop and pray in front of all those people and make sure the crowd knew how holy and pious they were.

~They made sure they were at the Times Square of their city where the most amount of people would be to get the biggest effect, in essence to say, LOOK AT THIS! DON’T YOU WISH YOU WERE JUST LIKE ME!

-I think of the warning Jesus gives in Luke 18:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’” (Luke 18:9–12 ESV)

-Who was the Pharisee’s attitude and audience when doing that? It was an attitude of superiority for the audience of humanity. He was praying in order to be seen by humanity. His prayers didn’t reach God because those prayers aren’t meant for God, they’re meant for man.

-Jesus says DON’T DO THAT. DON’T BE LIKE THAT. He gives the contrast:

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:13–14 ESV)

-Prayer is not a time to be an actor in a play, it is a time to relate and communicate with Almighty God. So, instead of going to the marketplace or Times Square and showing off, you go into the inner room of your house and be hidden from the view of men, knowing instead that you would be seen by God.

~Jesus says to go to the inner room, it describes a room that has no windows—a place where no one else can look in on the activities going on.

-Now, we don’t literally have to find a room with no windows or whatever, but the point is that when you pray you have an audience of 1. You are praying for God to hear and nobody else. Your concentration is on God, not on self. Your focus is on God and not on applause. You become more intimate with God, not trying to play a role.

-This being said, Jesus is NOT in any way condemning any form of public prayer. Jesus is NOT saying you are only to pray when you are alone. Elsewhere in Scripture it talks about people praying together. So, it is NOT the point to avoid any prayer with others around.

~But He is getting to the heart of the matter—the motivation for your prayer. You see, if you only pray when others are around but you never pray when you are alone with God, that is a problem.

-If you want the applause of men, that is all you are going to get. You are not going to get any sort of spiritual benefit and you are not going to get an answer to prayer. Jesus says people like that have their reward—the word means you get what you work for. You pray for the accolades of humanity, that is all you are going to get, but don’t expect anything from God.

-But you know what, if you humbly pray to God when you are all alone, laying your needs before Him, praising Him, interceding for others, Jesus says that even though nobody else sees you, God sees you and He will give you your reward, He’ll give you what you are looking for, because you have the right heart and the right motives.

-It doesn’t matter if nobody else sees what you do (whether it be prayer or good deeds or ministry or service), what matters is that God sees you. You don’t seek the recognition of man, you seek the recognition of God. And God hears your prayers when you are praying and nobody else is in earshot, and He will answer….

2) Don’t pray using empty words

-In vv. 7 & 8 Jesus literally says don’t babble—don’t heap up empty phrases. Don’t use a bunch of empty words thinking that somehow the more flourish that you put to your words, the more impressed God will be and the more likely He will be to answer your prayer.

-It says don’t pray like the Gentiles (in the ESV), but the word means nations, and it speaks of those who are outside of the covenant with God. The pagans had these empty rituals and chants that they would do to try and impress their god who doesn’t exist anyway, but they thought the more that they talk and the more words they used and the more words that they repeated then they would be heard—they just had to find the right formula.

-So, for example, sometimes their prayers would entail just repeatedly saying the name of their god thinking that this would ingratiate the god to their cause. You’d have a bunch of people repeating endlessly things like Baal, Baal…--that’s kind of what the priests of Baal did when they went head to head with Elijah

-Or we might be more familiar with the chant of the eastern religions as they try to become one with their deity. You’ve heard it said in movies or TV but it is a mindless chant: OM/AUM…

-Jesus warns against tedious wordiness. He also warns against empty words that are spoken like an incantation but they are not really conversation with God. It can speak of just going through the motions with words without them being something that wells up from the heart—they don’t really mean anything to the one repeating the words.

-This could happen within churches or denominations that are liturgical—they follow a liturgy. And I’m not saying liturgy is bad, but if you repeat the same prayers week after week and the same sayings, they really lose their distinctiveness. People will begin to repeat them from rote memory out of habit and they’re just babbling words without thinking about their importance.

-Not meaning to be insulting to anyone, but I grew up Roman Catholic, and they had the rosary. You’d say the Hail Mary 10 times and then another prayer. And then you’d say the Hail Mary 10 times, and then on and on.

~Now, not to get into the problematic theology about Mary that they have, but constantly repeating that prayer over and over again doesn’t get you anywhere. Beside the fact it’s not even a prayer to God, but there mere repetition of it accomplished nothing.

-And I think about the verses that follow after what I read—we know it as the Lord’s prayer. In version found in the gospel of Luke, Jesus’ disciples ask Him to teach them to pray, and this prayer is His response to them. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name…….

~But the prayer was to be a model prayer—teaching you some of the finer points of what a proper prayer can entail. Jesus didn’t give the prayer for us to merely repeat verbatim over and over and over again.

~If all goes according to plan I will go over what are the points of prayer that the Lord’s prayer teaches us—but it is not teaching us to repeat the exact words over and over and over again. That is the babbling that Jesus warns about.

-Now, I again have to give a sort of caveat here—Jesus is NOT saying that you cannot repeat asking for something over time. We know that Jesus Himself spoke of the importance of perseverance in prayer. So, if there is a burden on your heart, you most assuredly can bring that before the Lord every day until you receive an answer. I mean, you could persevere in prayer for years over whatever is the burden of your heart.

~But, at the same time, we can’t think that if we just mindlessly repeat a prayer over and over again that we’re going to somehow wear God down.

~You know how sometimes kids will just keep bugging you and bugging you and bugging you about something (all within a 15 minute gap) and finally you’ve had enough and so you give them what they want just so their mouths will stop flapping.

~That’s not what we do with God. We can repeat a request to God, but then we leave it with Him.

-The story goes that pastor/evangelist George Mueller began to pray for the salvation of 5 friends, and would lift their names often before the throne. After 5 years one of them came to saving faith in Christ. After 10 years of prayer, two more of them came to faith in Christ. After 25 years the fourth friend came to Christ. And 52 years later, a few months after Mueller’s death, the 5th friend came to Christ.

~That is perseverance in prayer. Mueller didn’t use vain babblings or empty words. He persevered without going into incantations or spells.

~Mueller understood what Jesus said, that the Father already knows what we need. We aren’t going to bug Him into doing what we want—that’s not what prayer is. But we will build relationship with Him as we bring our requests before Him.

Conclusion

-So, not all warnings are silly or useless. There are some good warnings—and Jesus gives us some things to consider regarding our prayer life.

-Maybe you need to come to the altar today and repent of some of these wrong prayer practices. Or maybe there is a burden on your heart that you need to bring…

-I’ll give an extra warning, God will not hear your prayer if you haven’t trusted Christ…