Good morning, church! If all of us could be candid, how are we feeling this morning? Well, let me encourage us to know that God is fully aware of how we’re doing this morning & He intends to not drain us & pull us down but to revive us and lift us up. And one of the main ways in which He revives and lifts us up is by speaking to us through the preached word.
So be assured – God wants to speak to us this morning. He wants to revive us. He wants to lift us up. The question is – are we listening? Are we prepared to have open ears and humble hearts to listen to Him this morning?
Or are we going to allow our worries, our fears, our distractions, our guilt, our frustrations, or sometimes it’s just our tiredness to suck out our joy and keep us from listening to His voice?
And to be honest, it can be a real struggle. And that’s why we need God’s help from the get-go itself to prepare us so that we can listen to Him. So let’s pray earnestly.
Pray
As most of us might be aware, we’ve just completed a series from the book of Job. It took us about 7 months to finish it, and now that we’ve completed the series, we’ll be doing a standalone sermon this week.
And the question that we’re trying to answer this morning is “What does God desire to see in our prayer lives?” If God could express His utmost concern, what matters most to Him when it comes to our prayer lives, what would it be?
A lot of the time when we talk about praying, we talk about it only from a human perspective – where we say prayer is talking to God & expressing ourselves honestly to God.
And that’s all true, but what if we flipped that around and looked at prayer from God’s perspective. What does God intend to see in our prayer lives? As we grow and mature in our relationship with the Lord, what should the focus & the emphasis of our prayers be?
And the best part is that we don’t have to guess or imagine the answer to this question. The Lord Himself spells it out for us in Matt 6. He clearly tells us what God desires to see in our prayer lives. What is that?
1. Prayer life that is private (V5-6)
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.
Just to give a quick context of this passage – just to know where it’s placed. It’s part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, where He teaches on various topics. One interesting thing to note in the entire Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus keeps giving a radically different kingdom perspective on each topic that He addresses.
What people expect Jesus to say on these topics, and what Jesus ends up saying on these topics are totally different. Which is why Jesus often says “You have heard it said”…. “But I say to you”.
People’s expectations are on one side, and Jesus’ expectations on the other. Because Jesus’ perspective is a kingdom perspective and our perspective is often an earthly perspective.
Let’s keep that thought in mind even as we come to Chapter 6. And V1 sets the context for all the other verses which are going to follow. It says in V1 – “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven”.
Who are we trying to please as we do these spiritual things? Who is our audience? Who are we most conscious about? So we can already see that Jesus is more concerned about our hearts than what’s seen on the outside.
And it’s the same idea which follows in V5 when He speaks about prayer. He says that when we pray, we should not be like the hypocrites. Now who were the hypocrites? Hypocrites were Greek actors who would wear masks to play different roles.
It’s so interesting that that’s where we get the word hypocrisy from. Wearing a spiritual mask, playing the role of a really spiritual character, but on the inside I’m a very different person. Already by simply hearing the word “hypocrites”, that should challenge us to ask ourselves – am I truly spiritual at heart or am I just playing the role of a spiritual person wearing a mask?
What is it that the hypocrites do? “For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others”. They love praying in public settings where they can be seen by others.
Where there are people to see them and appreciate them and praise them for their outstanding spiritual lives. “Truly I say to you, they have received their reward”. By saying reward, Jesus isn’t commending them, He’s calling out their sin. He’s saying that their only reward is going to be “people’s praise”. That’s what they want, that’s what they will get.
Now how is Jesus contrasting this with a kingdom perspective? By talking about a person’s private prayer life. 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.
Our private prayer life – prayers that we do when no one else is watching – that’s what God delights in. Now that is not to say that public prayer is a bad thing. In fact there are other passages in Scripture which command us to pray in corporate worship.
But if all that we do is have a public prayer life without a private prayer life, then that’s a problem. Because then that reveals a deeper heart issue where we are most concerned about ourselves than we are about God.
If all that we have is a public prayer life, then the focus is no longer on God, it’s only on us. It’s self-centredness – how can I use prayer to get people to like me and appreciate me?
Jesus is pointing this out because all of us have this tendency within us. So what’s the solution – repent and then prioritize having a private prayer life when no one is watching. Focus on having God as the audience and no other.
2. Prayer life that is simple (V7-8)
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.
It’s so interesting that in this verse, Jesus uses the example of Gentiles – people who prayed to pagan gods. And what they would do is repeat the names of their gods over and over again or the use the same words without thinking.
Mindless repetition because they felt like that is what would get the attention of their gods. Can that happen in the Christian life as well? Where we think that if we repeat certain words or phrases, then God will answer us.
Another form of this is when we use a lot of jargons in our conversations with God. We sometimes think that the more jargons we use, the more theologically technical words we use, God will be impressed and He will listen to us more.
And what Jesus is telling us is the opposite. He’s telling us that God knows what we need even before we say it. If God knows what we need even before we say it, then it can be simple.
I’m praying not to get God’s attention or to impress Him, I’m praying because I love Him and want to grow in a relationship with Him. So my prayers can be simple just like I would converse with my family.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes when we have a comfort level with our family, we don’t necessarily think about having the perfect grammar or perfect sentences. We know that our family understands. In the same way, our prayers can be simple with God and yet have depth as we grow in our knowledge and understanding of His word.
3. Prayer life that is reverent (V9)
9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Jesus proceeds to give us model prayer in the Lord’s Prayer which is why He says “Pray then like this” and not “Pray this”. He’s giving a pattern of prayer or telling us elements that need to be in our prayers.
The first thing that stands out for us is the fact that Jesus encourages us to address God as our Father in heaven. Wow! Just take a minute to allow that thought to sink in. The Almighty God who created the entire universe with His command has invited us to know Him not as our boss or CEO but as our Father. We can relate to Him intimately and personally as a child would with their parents. So even as we begin our prayers, we can begin with the understanding that we are speaking to our Father in heaven.
The second thing that we see in this verse is the phrase “Hallowed be your name”. May your name be treated with the highest honor and be set apart as holy. We remind ourselves that we are not speaking to a peer. We are not speaking to a fellow human. We are speaking to somebody equal to us. We are speaking with Holy, Righteous, Glorious and Just God. And if that’s the case, then the only right way to approach God is with reverence.
If you and I were to meet a head of state – either a President of a country or the PM of a country, what would our posture be? Automatically our hands in front of us, body posture leaning forward out of respect for the person in that position. And this is simply an earthly head of state. How much more reverence should we have and what should our posture be as we approach the King of Glory? As we approach the One who is a Consuming Fire?
4. Prayer life that is submissive (V10)
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
The natural next step of acknowledging God as Holy & also our Father is desiring to see God’s kingdom & purposes advance and also a willing submission to Him. To take forward that example of us standing in front of a Head of State, we wouldn’t go and direct the Head of State to fulfill our agenda, our purposes and plans. We wouldn’t demand and throw our frustration if the Head of State doesn’t follow our agenda. In fact, we would humbly ask them what their purposes and plans are, and we will do all that we can to fulfill their wishes. There is a submissiveness. There is a surrender. There is obedience to give up our purposes and plans for the purposes and plans of someone greater than us.
That’s the same attitude which is desired in our prayer life. So the question that we need to ask ourselves is this – am I really concerned about God’s kingdom purposes and the advancement of the Gospel or am I most concerned about my little kingdom and the advancement of my goals in life? What is most important to me? If God’s will for us was different from my will for my life, would I still gladly and willingly submit to Him? Or is my submission to God conditional? Where we say “God, I will submit and surrender to you only as long as it is convenient and it meets my expectation?”
5. Prayer life that is dependent (V11)
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
And now we come to our needs! It’s so interesting to see this in the pattern of prayer Jesus gives us. We start from God – we revere Him, we adore Him, we submit to Him and now we are in the right place to ask Him for our needs. There is a definite place for us to come to God with our needs.
And the verse says “daily bread” – not weekly, monthly, yearly – daily bread which means that God desires that we come to Him every single day and trust Him to provide us with what we need for that day. And the next day we go back to Him and ask Him to provide us for the next. This is not to say that we shouldn’t save or invest. But the focus of this prayer is to acknowledge who is your provider. It’s not your job. It’s not your business. It’s not your family. It’s not your government. God is our Provider and because He is faithful, He will faithfully provide us with what we need every single day. God is not promising a luxurious and glamorous life but He promises to faithfully care and provide for His children with what they need every single day.
6. Prayer life that is repentant (V12)
12 and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Repentance is a critical part of the Christian life, not just on the day when we first believed, but every single day until Jesus comes again. And the reason we daily repent and confess our sins is not because we’re terrified that God’s going to punish us and kick us out of the door. No, if we have trusted in Jesus, then he assures us by saying, “no one can snatch them out of my hand”. So then why do we repent and confess? Because we value a relationship with God, and we don’t want anything to come in the way to hinder our walk with the Lord. We want that intimacy with the Lord to be restored. We don’t want to be cold in our relationship with God.
Sometimes when I feel cold in my walk with the Lord, I try and ask myself, “What is the unconfessed sin that I’m carrying with me? What is the guilt that I carry that stops me from enjoying my relationship with Jesus?” It’s an opportunity to repent.
7. Prayer life that seeks help to resist temptation (V13)
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
God is not tempted and neither does He tempt us, as it says in James 1. So this verse actually means “lead us away from temptation” or “allow us to be spared from circumstances that lead us to sin”. And it’s a prayer that acknowledges our weakness and vulnerability to temptation and the attacks of Satan. “God, I know my heart and its tendencies. Would you please help me to not try to push the boundary as much as I can, but to stay far from tempting circumstances so that my heart and affections can be real for you? I’m weak, Lord, would you please help me to fight the attacks of Satan in my life?”
8. Prayer life that is based on grace (V14-15)
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
For the longest time I thought that this verse meant conditional forgiveness. Where I thought that the onus is on our actions to see if God forgives us or not. But that’s not what it means. What this verse means is that anyone who has tasted the grace and forgiveness of God cannot have any reason to hold back grace and forgiveness from anyone else.
Whenever we harbor a grudge or unforgiveness against anyone and then justify that by saying “I know I need to forgive, but you don’t know what this person did and how he / she hurt me not once but several times”, whenever we do that we forget how much God has forgiven us in Christ. The offenses that anyone has ever done to us is a fraction of what we’ve done to God and yet God lavishly forgave us through the life and death of Jesus Christ. And so therefore our prayer lives absolutely need to be soaked in reminders of grace every single day. Every single day, let our prayers express gratitude to God’s grace in Jesus.