right motive for prayer the right motive for prayer it's kind of a somewhat you'll get a couple overlap principles that I preached on before but for the most part it's gonna attack this passage in a different way and I hope it's a challenge to all of us because we certainly need it Let's read our text. We'll have a word of prayer, and we'll get into it. Jesus said, and when thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret, And thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them. For your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. Then, as ye know, verse nine begins, uh after this manner therefore pray ye and then he gives us a pattern for prayer but we will not start that until uh the lord allows us obviously next week is the lord's supper let's begin by a word of prayer right now father we thank you for the challenge that we have to be uh praying more in our private life help us to see that tonight And let it be a test, an examination, Lord, of our spirituality tonight. We know you want us all to look at our own hearts, examine our own hearts before you, before your word, to see where we stand spiritually. So Father, we ask now that you would work mightily through your word in our lives and challenge us in such an important area of prayer. It's one of the most powerful weapons we have, but probably the most neglected as well. So help us to see that tonight in Jesus name. Amen. This passage is speaking to those who do pray. He says, when now prayers, people who take prayer seriously, we could say, and I don't want to go back over there, but, um you know the context of john 14 greater works than thee shall ye do and then the context he says because i go to the father so the greater works that we can do as a believer is through prayer because he's now at the right hand of god interceding It's not that we're gonna do greater works than Jesus. I hope you don't think you can do greater works than Jesus, what he did on the earth. No, he's talking about the privilege of prayer and the power of prayer throughout the whole earth while he's at the right hand of the father, how much more can be accomplished when he sends his spirit to us and then he's there. That's the greater works that we do. So don't let other people fool you with a bunch of false doctrine. You know a lot of people believe things because they take them out of context. Sadly. So the greatest works that we could do is through prayer. I hope we are convinced of that. You know when like let's say you physically can't come to church. You can't do these things like you used to do. But now. you're stuck at home, what can you do? The greatest thing that you can do, the greatest ministry that you have is through prayer. That's the greatest thing. That's even greater than, you know, any other thing that we can do is to be praying and calling on God. Prayer is the way we fellowship with God. Go to Isaiah 43, 10. We will look around a few verses. Isaiah 43, 10. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe me. and understand that I am he before me there is no God form neither shall there be after me ye shall know and believe me you see the fellowship that God wants with man to know him to believe him this is God's desire So praying is the way we get to know God. Praying is the way we get to talk to God. Praying is the way we get to fellowship with God. That's the truth. That we do pray is not the concern in Matthew 6, if you go back there. That we do pray is not the concern at this point. It's how do we pray? How do we pray? The Bible says that we can pray a miss. You can pray, but you don't receive because you pray a miss. Remember I said about cell phones, folks, please put your cell phones away, or you can go sit in another room. If you have to use a cell phone, please do not use cell phones during church. Use your Bibles. Bibles. It's a good thing to have a Bible. Cell phones are distractions, even to the preacher. I don't like being distracted. So it is possible to pray and never be heard of God. Isn't that a sad thing today? If we pray, why are we praying? It is possible to pray In fact, there is a teaching in scripture that you could be praying to yourself and not to God. Remember the, the publican, the, the Pharisee and the publican, he prayed to himself saying the righteous self righteous public. He was praying to himself because God didn't hear him. So there is a thought in the Bible that you can be praying And your prayer goes no higher than your own ears. Or we could say, no higher than the ceiling. So brethren, Jesus here is setting out to teach us the right and wrong motives for praying. I think we need to challenge ourselves tonight. Do we really have the wrong, the right motive? We're going to look at the wrong motive, right? And then we're going to look at the right motive. And the title of our series is praying so that we could be heard. Isn't that the goal of prayer is to be heard of God. But let's challenge ourselves. I know I mentioned this before. So number one, the wrong motive for prayer is to be heard of men. Now we're going to go a little deeper here. Before we get into this point, the challenging part I think tonight is this. If we really know God, then we pray. If we really know God, then we pray to God. Because if we really believe in God and we know Him, we talk to Him. That's the most important thing to get out of this message, that if we really know Him, there is nothing that could keep us from praying if we know Him. If we know God personally, if we know him as father, remember he says, for your father, he's talking about our father. Do we know God as our father? Because if we know God as our father, we know this. He loves us. He cares for us deeply. He's our father. How about any child? You know, really any child, I realized a lot of fathers fail in one way or the another, but most children are in love with their father and they talk to their father. They, they like talking and sharing with their father. I know. Okay. You get older. Yeah. You know, you got your own, uh, independence and so forth. But truly, if you love your father, you want to talk to your father. I'll tell you what really ripped my heart out this week is saying goodbye to my daughter. And she said, I really miss you, dad. That's the kind of love we should have for our heavenly father. So, here's the challenge tonight. If we primarily pray in public, and we pray, little if any, in private, we need to examine ourselves whether we know Him. Whether we truly know the Father. So we have to ask ourselves this question. Do we love to pray in public or in private? What do you love the most? Now this is a challenge to men because we have men praying in the church service. By the way, that is biblical. leading the church service and there's a lot of things i get into but let me let me clear that up very very quickly first timothy too there's a reason we don't have lady pastors remember what we talked about here the archbishop now of canterbury female unbiblical Now, so you understand what it's saying here, remember the whole first Timothy to what's the teaching of first Timothy. It's how to behave yourself in the house of God that is found in chapter 3 verse 15. That's like the theme how to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. So he's giving instructions to Timothy as a pastor to teach how to behave in God's house. And he says this If you remember 2 1 says I exhort therefore that first of all supplication prayers intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men. Then he goes down the list. It's good and acceptable. And then he says in verse 8 I will therefore that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So he's saying man. I want you to pray in church. But then he says in nine, in like manner also the women adorn themselves in modest apparel. So he's saying, men, here's your duty, women, here's your duty in church. Verse 11, let the women learn in silence with all subjection. Verse 12, but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Where? In the church. Women shouldn't be instructing men in the church. Women should not be preachers in the church. It's a false doctrine. God is not, this is not cultural. It's not culture. It's not, okay, well, this was the culture in that day, and now we have a new culture. No, it wasn't. Look at verse 14, or 13. For Adam was four in person, and Eve. It's from creation order. It's not culture. It's from the very beginning that God created man and woman, and this is the role that men and women have, and it comes all the way down to the church. Verse 14, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression. Adam, he openly rebelled against God. He followed his wife. There's a lot of reasons we could talk about that. But he kept his mouth shut and he did what his wife wanted at that point. And ladies, when you go into childbirth, you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and you better fear God, because he's the one who brings you through that. He shall be saved through childbearing. Thank God he brings them through on the other side. so when i i'm trying to get everyone to understand the context in the bible we can go to many verses but prayer public prayers to be done by men so men be careful when jesus is talking about us about praying in public because we're going to be called on to pray in public so once you go back to our text now Do we love to pray publicly? Number one, some love to pray publicly. Verse five, and when thou prayest thou shall not be as the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you they have their reward. So some love to pray publicly. They seem to love vocalizing their prayers and needs to God publicly. Some have become very fluent in public prayer, yet they lack this, the essential love for private praying. This is the error. If we pray in public and not in private, that's the error here, that Jesus is expressing and he tells us thou hypocrite don't be a hypocrite he says in verse five so some love to pray in public some pray only in public some pray only in public some pray with their families at meals family prayers with children in church in public when eating in restaurants. But the danger is if you never pray privately on your own that means we are destitute in our prayer life. We are destitute. If we only do these kinds of prayers then we're destitute in our prayer life. I'm not saying do not pray publicly, because prayer is to be offered to God. Remember 1 Timothy 2, I 1? He's exhorting us that intercessions be made in the church for all of these people, for all of our leaders, for that list, and for the salvation of souls. We need to be praying in church. That's not what we're saying. But let's back up our public prayer because we do pray in private. We pray in private. We need to be careful that we don't slip into our private prayer publicly because we haven't been praying privately. So we slip into that publicly. When you're praying in public, you're representing the group in prayer. I'm not saying you can't talk about your own heartfelt needs and so on and so forth. But if that's a lot of times, if you slip into that inner private devotional prayer, it's because you're lacking that in your private life. You're lacking spending time there. So you slip into that when you're praying publicly. Now we do know there's posture in praying. Here we have a man. They pray standing. Now obviously prayer It's an acceptable posture to stand and pray. Obviously, there's sometimes you can only be standing and praying. I had to stand a lot of guard duty in the military, but I surely could pray during that time because I couldn't go anywhere for hours, so I just had to stand there. What do you do when you do that? You pray. You talk to God. You spend a lot of time in prayer, amen? What do we do in the doctor's office? You know, when you're sitting there, pray. But here's a person, the picture here is pride, right? He's arrogant. He's self-confident. He's standing there. That's why I always think when we look at the Bible, we know that they knelt in prayer. Kneeling in prayer is what we are to do secretly, right? We're to kneel in prayer. I'm not saying I like kneeling in prayer in church because it shows humility. It shows reverence. It shows dependence upon God. But we shouldn't just do it publicly. We need to be doing it privately. So here's the bottom line. If we only pray in public and not in private, then we are loving to pray publicly and not we're committing that sin. We're committing that sin here. They love to pray standing. They love to pray publicly. We are committing that sin. So the sin is praying only in church, praying only publicly, seldom praying privately. Because Christ says this, real prayer is praying to our Father in secret. That's real prayer. We need to be careful. You know when we pray publicly sometimes our we have our pride stroked. We have our ego stroked. We self-centered thoughts can run across our mind. We're really praying a good prayer. We're waxing eloquent in our words. We're going to be admired. We're demonstrating a close walk to God because of our deep spirituality in the way we pray. All of that could be selfishness. We could be deceiving ourself in doing this. Now, the wrong motive And I'm not, I'm challenging us. I realize, okay, you're not thinking, man, you know, I only pray in public because I really want recognition. What I am saying is this, if you only pray in public and you do not pray privately, then you're tempted to have these wrong attitudes and wrong motives. That's the problem. Brethren, it says right here, when we do this, It says in verse 5, they have their reward. You have your reward. You're going to get a good self-image. You're going to get some confidence. You're going to get some good feelings, some satisfying thoughts. You have that. But in this case, and Jesus is cutting right through all that, he says, this is a false self-image. It's a false self-image. When we're doing this, it's false. It's not real. It's not what he wants. So we have to be careful. We're cheating ourself because we're missing out on the most intimate presence WITH THE LORD IN PRIVATE PRAYER. SO WHAT'S YOUR REWARD? WHAT'S EVERYONE'S REWARD WHO SLIPS INTO THIS SIN OF PRAYING PUBLICLY ONLY? THE REWARD IS THIS, PUBLIC RECOGNITION. NOTHING BEFORE GOD, BUT PUBLIC RECOGNITION. SHOULDN'T WE WANT TO HEAR AT THE END OF THIS, ALL OF OUR LIFE, ALL THAT WE DO FOR THE LORD, That's what we, our goal is here. Not that everyone thinks we're the greatest Christian, but we're not really walking with God in our private life. Brethren, everyone's going to forget this you see the esteem of others is going to be lost it's going to pass quickly that's not why we're here to have the esteem of others the esteem of our fellow members the esteem even of our pastor that's not what it's all about amen because man's esteem becomes commonplace Because we begin to do this day by day and they no longer become unique because it's the same type of things we always do. So we're even losing that esteem of others. I think Peter says it very clearly. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. 1 Peter 2.24. That is man's, that's our esteem. That's the praise of others. It's meaningless in light of eternity, in light of judgment. It's meaningless. That's not what it's about, amen. psalm jot this verse down this is a good verse psalm 49 read psalm 49 psalm 49 17 for when he dieth he shall carry nothing away his glory shall not descend after him do we get that our glory will not descend after us when we die we shall carry nothing away Ah, ask you to pray for me. I accidentally took the wrong medication this afternoon. It's the one that makes me dizzy. I got away from it and I don't know what it was by my bed stand. And I was talking to my wife. I said, Hey, I'm going to take my medication. And I took the wrong one. Hmm. And the other one gives me insomnia, but that's the only one I can take. So I've been having a miserable, miserable time of it for a long time. Let's move on with God's grace. And this is the last point, amen. Two point message. The wrong motive for praying is to be seen of men, right? Praying publicly. The right motive for prayer is praying to be heard of God. This is where we need to really examine ourselves. Are we really wanting to fellowship with our Father? Are we really praying to God so that we could be heard of Him? Let's look at that verse. six, but when thou prays. Verse seven, but when ye pray. First of all, I want you to see preliminary thoughts here. There has to be a will to pray. Are you willing to pray? Do you want to pray? If we're going to pray, we need to take time to get alone and pray. Can you imagine it's the greatest blessing we have, the greatest opportunity to fellowship with our father, the greatest accomplishments on earth are done through prayer and yet we pray very little. The average believer probably spends a few minutes in prayer. A day. Too many are wrapped up in the world and its day to day affairs. Some things are necessary, I realize that God knows that, too. Some things are necessary, but are they more necessary than prayer? We have to ask ourselves, I know we got to do these things. We got to get ready for the day. We got to, you know, eat. We got to get dressed. We got to take our medications. Some of us, amen. You got to do all these things. But are they more necessary than prayer? You see how foolish we. We convince ourselves. So the first thing we see here, willingness to take time to pray is necessary. The second thing we see here in a preliminary thought is this, a closet is a necessity. A closet. You must have a private place deliberately chosen for prayer. You must have a place of prayer. You must deliberately choose a place where you get alone with God and you pray. You have to have that. That's what Jesus is teaching here. When thou prayest, enter into thy closet and shut thy door. These aren't just suggestions to us. These are instructions from the Lord Jesus Christ. If we're gonna pray, this is how we are to do it, to follow his instructions. The third essential thing here, preliminary thoughts, is this, God is our Father. We must have a father-son relationship. This is absolutely essential if we are going to pray. Now, father's the greatest thing we can do. And whether our children do this or not, I know a lot of times they think they can't do this. But fathers, we must be available to listen to our children. We must let them know, hey, you can talk to me. You can come to me, I'll listen to you. This is God, our father, he's available at all times. We're to go to him, we're to share, we're to commune with him. Do you know he wants to shower his love upon us, his grace upon us, his care for us, his protection. He wants to he wants to meet our every need. We how many verses of the Bible can we can we say tonight? Go to Psalm 91 one, put your finger here. Come back quickly. I thought I was going to get done a little early, but. What is that even relative? What does that even mean? Get down early, get done late. Verse 1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Think about that verse. When you're abiding under the shadow of the Almighty, meaning He's just covering you, He's protecting you, He's providing for you, His presence, His power, His blessing is all over us. Amen. Go back to our text. So the Lord tells us here that a man who is genuine in prayer and is to be heard of God, he will not... The Lord says that a man who is genuine prays to be heard of God and not by man. That's the key. We're praying to be heard of God. So if we're gonna be praying to be heard of God, we have to get alone with God. That's what it's saying here. Shut your door and your closet. You need to be undisturbed. You need to be in a place that no one's gonna distract you. How about Jesus? Mark this down. I got a few verses here. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. This is our Lord Jesus Christ, Mark 135. How about Mark 6? 46 to 47 and when he had sent them away he departed into a mountain to pray and when even was come the ship was in the midst of the sea and he alone on the land how about peter remember it uh when cornelius when they came searching for peter where was he Acts 10 9 on the morrow as they went on their journey drew nine to the city peter went up on the housetop To pray about the sixth hour there. He was all alone up on the house, you know on the um terrace, uh What's it called? Yeah, it says roof but the idea is It's like a porch up there. That's how the houses were built. You could get up there on the roof Supposedly that house is still standing and I went there to see that house. That's amazing. So the reason that we pray in private or in that closet is because God is there in secret. That's where he wants to meet us. God is in secret. We need to meet God in secret. Do you see, even when you're here, that's why I realize we ought not to be so programmed in the routine of church, okay? Because when we bow in prayer, you need to focus on God. God is in secret. You need to get alone with God in the midst of a worshiping crowd and focus on him. He's there in secret. Concentrate on him. Focus your attention on him. He's real. He's here. He's in our midst. You have to have a heart-to-heart meeting with God. You need to have communion with God. He's not interested in show. He's interested in substance. Show is before men. Substance is found in that secret, quiet, meditative place of silence and secrecy. Think about your life. Everything that exists begins with an idea. And the development of that idea came from private and quiet thoughts and meditation. Not out in public before people. At least not often. All the thoughts, all the ideas in the world begin when you are alone, when you're thinking, when you're meditating. I have, I'm not going to share every time I have those or where I am. I have those times. I'm sorry. Whoa, my mind starts turning and I start thinking about everything that God wants me to do and what God can do. So the same is true in spiritual matters. Spiritual substance. That direction, that presence from God, talking to God, that meditative state, being alone with God, really happens in secret. When you pour out your heart to God, you receive the greatest encouragement. You receive strength in the secret place of the Most High. You're dwelling under the shadow of the Almighty, not in public places before men. You're alone with God. Now, how many pray on the run Really the truth is, many pray on the run, few pray in secret. Here's the question we gotta deal with. Why do so few have a quiet time? A daily worship time, a daily devotional time? Why do so few not keep their daily appointment with God every day? Do you have an appointment with God every day? Do you have a daily quiet time with God? Do you have a place where you meet God, where you pray, where you talk to God, where you open the scriptures of God and He speaks to you? Would you ever fail to keep your appointment with President Trump if he called you to the White House? Now, some of you probably don't like him enough. You wouldn't want to go. But let's say it's the greatest leader you love, and they say, hey, I want you at my office next week at such and such an hour. You're going to say, well, I'm going to get there. Right? I think we would make that appointment. How many say they do not have time? So they do not take time. Do you understand that excuse? It's such a empty excuse. It's such a vain excuse. I have no time. Do you make that excuse? You see, in all honesty, it takes very little effort. Let me just tell you how it's done. It takes very little effort. I know some of you get up really early. It takes very little effort to get up earlier than when you need to. to leave the house, to allow for that time to get alone with God. Let me just tell you, you need to rearrange your schedule. You need to make it a priority to get up and to meet God, for there's no other important meeting that you ever have in life than to meet God. There's no other meeting that's more important than that. We don't believe these things, do we? I always say this, and I will say it again. We don't really believe what the Bible says, even about church. Because Any little thing that happens, we'll miss church, but you will be at work. You won't miss work. You won't miss school. You won't miss other meetings with other people, but you will miss church for any stupid reason or any foolish reason or any empty reason. Do you know that God is telling us that we are to put him first in all things? Because we can and we should. Not because it's convenient, because it's necessary to put God first. I don't care what other churches do. Maybe you don't like what I am preaching tonight, or maybe you don't want to get on board. Let me just tell you, find a different church if you don't want to get on board here. That's what I mean. Because we are getting on board with God, and you may not feel comfortable in this church. Because I'm not going to accept anything less as a pastor. He needs to be first. And we're not just playing around. We're not playing church. We're not just going to do traditional things and things as convenience sake and circumstances and culture. I don't care about culture. Culture is wicked. Culture is evil. We don't need to meet people in culture. We need to meet God. We need to meet them with the word of God. This is the culture that transcends all cultures, whether it's in Africa and South America and Asia, all over this world, in Europe. This is what transcends everything. And he's telling everyone to love him first, put him first and meet him every day and every moment of the day to rely on him and to depend on him and put him first on Sunday, the first day of the week. Let me just say this. We are without excuse, all of us. If we don't have a personal quiet time with God and you don't meet him every day in the word and in prayer and in that closet, we are without excuse. You have time, make time. And the reason we don't make time is because we don't make it a priority in our life. Let me ask you, where's your heart? Do you believe in God? Do you know God? If you know him, you'll put him first. You will pray to him. You will listen to him. You will talk to him and you'll sit before him and be quiet and you will know him. That's the reality of this. Now, you hear this message, change tomorrow morning, change this week and put him first. Don't sit here and say, well, you know, I don't have to listen. God is going to hold you accountable for every word and every thought. It's a matter of discipline and priority, and that's what disciples are called to do, because Jesus said we are to deny ourselves, we are to take up our cross, when? Sundays? No, daily. And follow him daily. It's not a Sunday thing. It's not putting on a show every Sunday. It's walking with God every day. This is the reality of it. I don't care what other churches do. I don't care what you used to do, we're changing. We're gonna put God first because he deserves it. I like the fact, and it amazes me, aren't you amazed at this thought? Boy, what a thought. That God tells us about this, he challenges us, Jesus, right? Jesus, God. And then he says this. I will reward you if you do this. Do you know that in the Bible, and I'm amazed that we have five crowns, and I'm not gonna preach this, but there are crowns that we can win if we're faithful. But here's some rewards. It says right here, Jesus said, if we meet him, if you go, pray to thy father, which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. He's gonna reward us. This genuine prayer, the genuine prayer warrior will receive rewards and blessings from God. Let me name a few. Number one, God's presence and strength will be upon your life. Remember Ezra? You could go through the Bible says the hand of the Lord was with him. The hand of, don't we need the hand of the Lord with us? The power of God working. We need God's presence in our life as we walk through this corrupt world. I need him. Don't you need him? So you're going to have the presence and power of God. We read some verses about that Psalm 91. Just read the whole Psalm. Amen. Your prayers will be answered. Do you know that your prayers are going to be answered not just for you, like in your life secretly, but God's gonna make that known that, wow, they pray and God hears them and answers their prayers. We're talking about being a witness and a testimony for Jesus. Wouldn't that be a real testimony when people say, wow, it seems that God is real in your life and God really answers your prayers. Wouldn't that be something that attracts people to God? This is one of the promises. We know how many promises, and we're not gonna go there, but how about 1 John 5, 14 and 15, that if we know, if we ask anything in according to his will, he heareth us. God is going to answer the genuine believer, the genuine prayer warrior. Sometimes these answers will be seen in renewed strength. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to his power that worketh in us, God will provide some necessity in your life, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his rights and all these things will be added unto you. God is going to help you have victory over a great temptation or a great trial. There hath no temptation taken you, but such is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it. How does that come to us? Through prayer. How about that peace that passes all understanding? Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. How about a sound mind that's incomprehensible For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Do you see how much God can give us, reward us, if we were genuinely spending time with him in our secret place of prayer, the place we meet God, the place that we discipline ourselves and we make a priority in our life, God will reward us. openly. That's his promise. Now, if we know him, we don't have an option. We must talk to him in that closet, in that secret place. If you've let that slip because you've allowed other things to creep up in your life, or you believe the devil's lies and excuses that he's made for you, Change tonight in your heart and then start tomorrow morning. First thing, put God first, make him real, make that time real. See what it can do in your life, how that'll change your day. Then you're gonna get to the place where you're gonna be like, I can't live without that. It's so real, and God's working powerfully. You get, you're dependent on that. You're like, man, I've missed my time with God. I feel so empty. Everything's a mess today. I've missed it. And you can't feel right or do right until you get back to having that time with God. That's how real it can become. Let's make it real. Let's all stand, every head bowed, every eye closed.