This Is How You Should Pray
Introduction: On this second Sunday of our month-long all-church sabbatical, I want us to return to the Sermon on the Mount. Last Lord’s Day, because of the outbreak of war in the Middle East, we took a brief excursion to the 40th chapter of Isaiah, but the remainder of our sabbatical themes will come from the 6th chapter of Matthew. I want to begin this morning by reading part of the passage I skipped last Sunday and then continue with our Scripture for today, often known as the Lord’s Prayer, or better, the Disciple’s Prayer. Matthew 6:5-15:
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
It is obvious that the words of Jesus that lead up to this beautiful prayer, which He uses to teach us how to pray, are intended to warn us first about how not to pray.
Jesus tells us how not to pray. (6:5-8)
Sometimes we need to unlearn before we can learn, and prayer is one of those spiritual activities that a lot of us have learned very poorly. The first issue he addresses is hypocrisy.
We are not to pray like religious hypocrites. Hypocrisy is a very interesting word. It comes from two Greek words which literally mean “to speak from down under.” In the Greek theater actors generally wore large masks, so their speech was from down under the mask. The word came to refer to anyone who is wearing a mask and pretending to be someone he is not.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day demonstrated their hypocrisy by seeking to be noticed in public while doing their prayer work. They would either stand in the synagogue or they would stand on the busiest street corners, ostentatiously seeking to be honored. Those of you who have been to Israel can still see some of this tendency if you go to the Wailing Wall. Religious types will stand at the wall, dressed in their special garb, rocking back and forth as they stick little prayer scrolls into the cracks in the huge stones that once formed the western wall of Herod’s temple. One can’t read their hearts, but it sure looks a lot like performance.
In contrast, says Jesus, the best way to pray is in your own room, with the door closed. Now does He mean that is the only right way to pray–in absolute secrecy? I think not. He Himself did not always do that, and there are many examples of public prayers in the Scriptures. Rather I think He is emphasizing sincerity more than secrecy. Sincerity is revealed by what we do when no one’s looking. Shutting the door signifies shutting out the world and being alone with God.
Now it’s possible to be alone with God even when we’re with a lot of people, but it’s not easy. That’s why we normally close our eyes when we pray. The real key is that our prayer should never be directed toward other people, but toward God. If the presence of others is going to influence our praying and cause us to alter what we would say and how we say it, then we should go into a private room and lock the door rather than be a hypocrite.
By the way, the Father promises a reward for prayer. Even the hypocrites receive a reward. Jesus says, “They have received their reward in full.” What is that reward? It’s the attention of other worshipers, and that is their only reward (the original language uses an accounting term, “paid in full”). After all, attention is what they seek, so it is attention they receive. But the worshiper who prays sincerely will be rewarded openly by God. I suspect that reward is generally answered prayer.
Not only must we avoid hypocritical prayer that is designed to impress others; we must also avoid prayer that consists of meaningless repetition.
We are not to pray like babbling pagans. The pagans, Jesus said, think they will be heard for their many words. In Elijah’s day the false prophets prayed louder and longer to wake up their gods. But quantity does not equal quality when it comes to prayer. It is simply not true that the longer the prayer the more effective it is, especially if the words being spoken are meaningless.
However, we must realize that it is not only pagans who are tempted to violate Jesus’ teaching here. Buddhist prayer wheels, Roman Catholic rosaries, and Protestant memorized prayers can all fall under the warning Jesus offers here. Some of you have shared with me that one of the principal punishments for misbehavior in parochial school was having to say so many “Our Fathers.” You got to the point where you could rattle them off with incredible speed. But why would anyone use prayer as a punishment, and what possible good would it do?
Why it is we should not try to overwhelm God with words when we are praying? Because it’s totally unnecessary. He knows what we need before we ask, says Jesus. Well, then, the logical question to ask is, “Why pray at all if God knows what we need?” The answer is found in the next sentence: because God says to: “This, then, is how you should pray.”
My wife loves me; there’s no doubt in my mind about that. I love her, and there’s no doubt in her mind about that. Do we then conclude that it’s unnecessary to verbalize that love? Well, I’m a man, so you know I don’t verbalize it as much as I should. But we both recognize the importance of saying something even though it is already known. And even though God knows what we need, He wants to hear it from us; He wants for us to talk to Him (and that’s really what prayer is–talking to the Father). Furthermore, prayer is the means through which God has chosen to channel His blessing in our lives.
Now so far Jesus has warned us how not to pray. Starting in verse 9 . . .
Jesus tells us how to pray. (6:9-15)
He offers us a model prayer that is so simple and yet so profound that it’s hard to imagine that anyone might abuse it. But … it happens. Listen in with me to Susan’s prayer life: Drama inserted here.
Now there is absolutely no way I can do justice to the Disciple’s prayer this morning by way of exposition, and in fact, there’s something about outlining a prayer that seems almost inappropriate. So I thought perhaps we could get to the heart of the matter by means of a series of questions about our own prayer lives, as compared to the prayer Jesus offers us.
1. Do our prayers begin with God as He has revealed himself?
The first half of the Disciples’ prayer is all about God rather than about ourselves. It begins by addressing Him as “Our Father in heaven.” This immediately tells us that this is not a prayer for everyone, but only for those who are God’s spiritual children. Only those who have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ have the right to address God as Father. Further, He is the Father in heaven–not the man upstairs, not our good buddy, not a celestial Santa Claus, but our Father in heaven. Do you notice something? Here in the opening line of this prayer is the whole theme we talked about last Sunday: God is great and He is small; He is big enough to protect us and small enough to care. He is our Father, but He is also our Father in heaven.
Jesus continues, “Hallowed be your name.” That means He must be held in reverence and awe. The Jewish scholars treated God’s personal name, Yahweh, as so holy that they wouldn’t even speak it. But hallowing God’s name means more than that. It also means more than just avoiding profanity. God’s name signifies all that He is–His character, plan, and will. When Moses was up on Mt. Sinai, we are told that “The Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name: ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.’” (Exodus 34:5-7)
We hallow His name when we learn all we can about Him, for we cannot revere a God whose character and will we do not know or care about. We hallow His name when we move beyond mere intellectual knowledge of Him to the point of practicing His presence–seeking true intimacy, opening our lives to Him. We hallow His name when we live in conformity with His will. We hallow His name when we attract others to Him by letting our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. The Psalmist sums up the teaching in this phrase with the exhortation: “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.”
How are we doing in our personal prayer lives in respect to beginning with God as He has revealed Himself? Do we begin our prayers with adoration and honor for God, or do we just open up with the “gimmes”?
2. Do we really want His kingdom and His will?
The prayer continues, “Thy Kingdom come.” Our greatest desire should be to see the Lord reigning as King in His kingdom, to have the honor and authority that is His by right though not yet fully realized. The kingdom of God is a fascinating topic in Scripture. If we take into consideration all the Bible says about God’s kingdom, I believe we are forced to adopt this description: “already but not yet.” There are aspects of God’s kingdom that are here already; there are other aspects that haven’t yet arrived and won’t until King Jesus returns. Both aspects–His present rule in our lives and His future rule in the millennial kingdom and throughout eternity–must be welcomed by God’s children. But unfortunately, too many of us say by our actions, “My kingdom come.” We’re building our castles and managing our resources and planning our future, often with little concern for God’s Kingdom.
“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Whenever we read of the will of God in Scripture, we have to ask, “What will?” There is a use of the term “will of God” that refers to His sovereign decree and overall plan for the universe. Sometimes this is called His permissive will, because in His plan God permits many things that He doesn’t desire–like sin and tragedy and death. The other frequent use of the term refers to His revealed will or His perfect will–i.e., what He has revealed to us as His desires for His creation. For example, when the Scriptures tell us that God is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9), clearly that is speaking of His revealed will, His desires. The fact is that some do perish, and therefore their eternal death is part of God’s ultimate plan or His permissive will.
When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done,” clearly the point is seeking God’s revealed will, His desires. We should want what He wants, and we should want it to the same extent it is done in heaven. By the way, “How are God’s desires done in heaven?” I think the answer is that His will is done completely, heartily, and immediately. The angels make sure of that.
Having set the tone for prayer as focused on the Father, Jesus now turns to our needs, as He counsels us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread?” This speaks of the source of our needs, namely God Himself, of the dependence we should have on Him, and of the importance of seeking Him daily. But the question I would like to ask is this:
3. Do our petitions focus on necessities rather than luxuries?
I find that we in the wealthiest nation in the world, most of whom know where our next 1000 meals or even next 10,000 meals are coming from, often end up petitioning God for luxuries rather than necessities. We pray for our IRA’s and 401K’s, or for our businesses to prosper, or for our search for a new and nicer home. And such prayers are not necessarily wrong. But I think there is a reason why Jesus prayed as He did, “Give us today our daily bread.” Bread is symbolic of all of our physical needs in life, including food, health, house, home, wife, children, good government, peace. That is where the focus of our petitions should be.
Yet it is so easy to trivialize prayer (“God, change the traffic light so I don’t have to stop,” or “Please open up a parking place near Busch Stadium”). It is so easy for our prayers to become selfish (“Lord, give us dry weather for our picnic,” with no thought given to the fact that the farmers are suffering from drought). It is easy to become presumptive in our prayers (“Lord, I claim your healing for the cancer in my body; I know it is already gone because Your Word says, “By His stripes we are healed”). These kinds of prayers can be avoided if we follow Jesus in focusing on necessities rather than luxuries.
I want you to note that this one short sentence in the Disciple’s Prayer is the only one that has anything to do with the physical aspects of life. Everything else has to do with the spiritual. Compare that to your own prayer life or even our corporate prayer life.
4. Do we ask for spiritual as well as physical blessings?
I am on a number of prayer lists. We have one in our Worship Folder every Sunday. I get one from my Small Church. There are missionaries that regularly send me prayer letters. I think a conservative estimate would be that 75% of all the prayers I hear are for physical needs–health, finances, traveling mercies, employment, etc. I suggest that someday you take a stroll through the great prayers of Scripture and see if you can find any prayers on such matters. People were just as sick in those days as today, and perhaps more often. They were just as much in need of protection on the roads (not from speed but from bandits). But those are not the issues that concerned the Apostles and prophets. Here’s just one sample prayer from Paul: Ephesians 3:16-21, but it is quite typical of prayers in the Bible:
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Am I saying that it’s wrong to talk to God about our health or safety or finances? No. Remember? He’s big enough to protect you and small enough to care. In fact, immediately after writing the above paragraph (within 10 minutes!), I received an email from my niece who is a missionary in Kazakhstan, an email I believe God wanted me to have as a corrective balance. After sharing about some of the spiritual victories they were experiencing, Julie wrote:
I want to share one little story. I home school four of our five children, and we had a total of five pencils, the #2 yellow kind. It was my fault that I forgot to get more while I was in the states, but I did. The imported pencils are expensive and the white erasers on the ends don’t work well. So, I asked God for pencils. I know it’s a tiny thing, but it was important to me. Anyway, I bought a few imported pencils to get us by, and the kids started complaining about the erasers not working (they make black smears on the paper). Then we went to our bi-annual retreat, and the group that came from the States to work with the kids brought our three oldest kids each a whole box of #2 pencils. The price sticker was still on the boxes, $0.50 a box. It was such a little thing, but it was a big thing to me and my kids because … we have these churches come in twice a year and no one has ever brought pencils before. Very simply, God cared about our need and answered our prayer. He had that church bring those pencils just for us. I felt so loved, cared for, and thankful to Him.
That is a beautiful testimony. Nevertheless, I still think it’s true that we reveal a great deal about where our heart is when our prayers are almost exclusively concerned with physical needs.
5. Are we satisfied to receive the same measure of forgiveness we have given?
This may be the most important question I ask this morning, for it gets the most attention from Jesus. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” I’m sure we’re all aware that the debts to be forgiven here are not financial debts but sin debts. The term “trespasses” catches the meaning much better. We all sin. We all need forgiveness. Then look at verse 14, which is almost a postscript to the Disciple’s Prayer: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
There are some heavy theological issues here that we would do well to examine if we had time. But we don’t, so instead I simply want to read a letter that gets to the heart of the issue. It’s found in Max Lucado’s book, The Applause of Heaven:
I caught my husband making love to another woman. He swore it would never happen again. He begged me to forgive him, but I could not–I would not. I was so bitter and so incapable of swallowing my pride that I could think of nothing but revenge. I was going to make him pay and pay dearly. I’d have my pound of flesh.
I filed for divorce, even though my children begged me not to.
Even after the divorce, my husband tried for two years to win me back. I refused to have anything to do with him. He had struck first; now I was striking back. All I wanted was to make him pay.
Finally he gave up and married a lovely young widow with a couple of small children. He began rebuilding his life–without me.
I see them occasionally, and he looks so happy. They all do. And I am–a lonely, old, miserable woman who allowed her selfish pride and foolish stubbornness to ruin her life.[i]
Unfaithfulness is wrong, and I do not minimize it in the least. But without forgiveness, bitterness is all that is left to the victim. As Lucado says, “Resentment is the cocaine of the emotions.”
How desperately we need to learn to forgive others. Please do not misunderstand Jesus’ words here. We do not earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving others, but we certainly do demonstrate God’s forgiveness when we forgive others. I want you to think about the one person who has hurt you the most over the past year. Now imagine that God comes to you and tells you that you can be God for a day. You can personally decide what punishment or discipline that person who has hurt you should receive, and He will bring it about. What are you going to do? And would it make a difference if you knew God would do the same to you the next time you hurt someone? I suspect we would all choose to forgive.
This morning we have an opportunity as a church family to extend forgiveness to one of our own. (Here we dealt with a matter of confession and accountability that was private to our own congregation).
6. Do we sincerely want God’s help in avoiding temptation?
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Immediately a problem comes to my mind. The book of James tells us that “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed”(James 1:13, 14). In addition, Paul promises us in 1 Cor. 10:13 that “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” If God doesn’t tempt anyone, and He promises a way out, why does Jesus encourage us to pray that He won’t lead us into temptation? I have to conclude that there is a difference between directly enticing someone and exposing them to areas where temptation exists.
Think, for example, about the fact that God put Adam and Eve in a beautiful Garden. In that Garden He placed a tree which He told them not to touch. If during one of His walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening God had picked an apple, polished it, and held it under Eve’s nose, we would have to say God tempted her. He never did that, and He never does that sort of thing. But it is quite possible that some of their walks took them within sight of that tree. At times God does lead His children into the vicinity of temptation.
What then is the point of the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation”? I believe it expresses a heart attitude that is essential to spiritual victory–the attitude of wanting to steer completely clear of sin. Some Christians seem to constantly flirt with danger, getting as close to it as possible. If they were to express their lifestyle in a prayer it might sound something like this: “Lead me into temptation, but at the last minute rescue me from the fire with just minor burns.” Such an attitude, says Jesus, is inappropriate for the Christian disciple. We should instead be pleading, “Lord, lead me as far away from it as possible! Deliver me from any and every attempt of the Evil One to destroy me or ruin my testimony.” And I believe that if that is our real desire God will answer that prayer, the temptations of life will decrease, and Satan will be held at bay.
7. Is His glory our ultimate goal?
You have undoubtedly noticed that the end of the Lord’s Prayer that we all learned as children is missing in most of our modern versions. It’s not because some translators are fiddling with God’s Word. It’s just that the best and oldest manuscripts of the NT do not include it. More than likely some ancient scribe in the 3rd or 4th century felt the prayer ended too abruptly and so decided to help God out by adding added the words, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” We can’t be certain whether these words belong in the original or not, but we can be certain that the words are true, because they are in harmony with all the rest the Bible says. There can be no question that prayer should have the ultimate glory of God as its goal.
In conclusion, allow me to ask one more question:
Will we allow Jesus’ words to change our prayer life?
I personally think this prayer is a model prayer not a prescribed prayer. I do not believe Jesus intended for this to be the prayer that Christians pray every time they get together. It is certainly appropriate to say it corporately, as well as individually. And when spoken sincerely from the heart it is as great a prayer as one could possibly pray. But I’m more concerned that we learn the elements of prayer and the focus of prayer and the passion of prayer from what Jesus taught us.
Every time we bow our head and close our eyes, we need to think about what we’re saying and why we are saying it. We dare not forget that we are talking to our Father in Heaven and the King of the Universe. We dare not forget that spiritual needs are more important than physical needs. We dare not forget that forgiving others is our obligation before God. And we dare not forget that His glory must be our ultimate goal.
Father, teach us to pray and teach us how to pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Tags:
Prayer
Hypocrisy
Kingdom
Forgiveness
Temptation
[i] Max Lucado, The Applause of Heaven, 110.