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your son said in Matthew chapter
6 and we pray that you would teach us correct us rebuke us
and train us for righteousness and we pray these things in Jesus
name Amen now I didn't record is that what you were just doing
great thank you all right well go ahead and turn to Matthew
chapter 6 if you would We are looking at the Gospel of Matthew,
if you didn't know. And I've explained in past sermons
why there's four Gospels. Why is one not enough? Why are
there four? Why are there not more? Well,
there's four that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Four individuals
who each wrote an account of the life and ministry of Jesus
Christ. Now, the reason there are four is because not all of
them were dealing with the same message, the same argument. Now, same message as a whole,
yes. But they were emphasizing something. They were arguing
something. They were trying to prove a point of something. Whatever
their purpose of writing was, it differed. And that's why,
as a whole, we get a complete picture. Well, not even complete.
John tells us that there's so much more that could have been
said. But we get a thorough picture of the life and ministry of Jesus
Christ, our Savior. Now, Matthew is setting out,
it's a book, I think, predominantly written to Jewish people, but
I think we have immense benefit from studying it ourselves, asking
and answering the question, why did the king come, but not the
kingdom? Why did the Messiah come, but not the messianic kingdom
that was promised that would come when the Messiah arrived?
Where is the kingdom? If Jesus is the Messiah, where
is the kingdom? And so Matthew sets out to answer
that question. And before he gets to the explanation
that we'll see later in his book, right now we're dealing with
the Messiah preaching to the crowds that are following him.
And he's teaching them principles of this coming kingdom. And so
with that, I've expressed before that the Sermon of the Mount
is not directly applicable to the church. It was written to
the nation of Israel. However, there are many similarities
that we can glean important application. This passage is one of them.
Last week, we talked about giving. There's some application for
us, right? This week, we're going to talk about prayer. There's
some application for us. Now, I want to preface, as I
did last week, that this passage is not everything
scripture has to say about prayer, in the same way that last week's
passage wasn't everything there was to say about giving. So,
what we're going to look at, you need to take into consideration,
of course, but also take into consideration that the Bible
talks a lot more about giving. It talks a lot more about prayer.
If you're interested in what the Bible has to say about prayer
We have a Bible study Wednesday night at 7 o'clock that you can
come to free of charge and enjoy great discussion and usually
some delicious snacks and so that is my shameless plug for
that if not, there are recordings, but that's the boring method
the unparticipating route so in this portion of The Sermon
on the Mount, the perhaps most famous sermon in scripture, definitely
the most one of the most famous that Jesus ever gave. I believe
he gave this message or a variation of this message probably a couple
different times. It's recorded a little bit differently
by the gospel writers. But I want to go back to something
that Pastor Dave highlighted for me last week concerning verse
one. Now the New King James says,
take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before
men to be seen by them. Does anyone have something different
than charitable deeds? Acts of righteousness. So there's
a textual variant here that I was unaware of. And I think it's
important. And so what the textual variant
basically is, is some manuscripts have charitable deeds here. So
that would make verse one launching us into this narrative of giving.
Whereas the alternative, and I think that it would seem likely
given the context is verse one is a transition into our acts
of righteousness. In other words, our acts of worship,
how we worship the Lord. And so take heed that you do
not do your righteous deeds or literally your righteousness
before men. And so we think about, you know,
and we highlighted last week, well, what about being a city
on a hill and a lamp, you know, shining our light? Shouldn't,
aren't we told to let our righteousness shine? Yes, but the issue he
was dealing with there is the explicit purpose of being recognized
or acknowledged or celebrated by men, being men pleasers rather
than God pleasers is what Jesus is addressing. And so verse one
sets us on a new trajectory of talking about our worship. And
there are three areas of worship addressed by Jesus. Number one,
giving. We looked at last week. Verses 2 through 4 rather than
1 through 4. Prayer, which we're going to
look at this week and next week. Verses 5 through 15. and fasting,
verses 16 through 18. And that will be interesting,
because I have not done a full, exhaustive study on biblical
fasting, and I think it'll be interesting to see the application,
perhaps, that we might draw from that. Now, with that, we did not finish
last week, as you might recall, but we were talking about the
heart of giving, and we got to the last main division, In verse
4, that your charitable deed may be in secret and your father
who sees in secret will himself reward you openly. Now that's a textual variant.
Some manuscripts don't have openly. It's just your father will reward
you. But the point is, there are rewards in giving the right
way. And there are rewards in praying
the right way. And that is the theme that we're
dealing with. So we looked at the heart of giving verse one,
the hypocrisy and giving, you know, not giving in order to
be seen the hiddenness or secret giving, you know, we be we should
be giving to God that's between us and God, not a spectator sport. And then the hope of giving.
What is the reward of giving? Well, I want to highlight a few
of these things before we jump into our new text. First of all,
will, there, the word will is a future active indicative. Now,
future tense means what? It's future. It's coming. It's
ahead. Active indicative means indicative
is true or true for sake of argument. In this case, it's true. In other
words, it will happen in the future. What is it? Well, first
of all, will himself. Now, in light of what we looked
at last week, what reward do you think is better? The praise
of men or the praise of God? Now, I'm not saying the praise
of men doesn't feel good. We like to be acknowledged. We
like to be appreciated, right? Or, on the flip side, we don't
like when we're underappreciated, when we're undervalued, at our
job, when we're working hard and our boss doesn't notice.
We get discouraged, right? We want a raise. We want an up
in our pay for the work that we're doing. Well, we can take
heart knowing that God sees and he himself will repay. Openly, again, is a textual variant
that the majority text includes that the critical text does not. The idea remains that God's reward
will be public because it will be received in the kingdom. Which
leads to an important question. What are rewards? Now, for sake
of time, we won't look at all of these passages, but rewards,
and this is by no means exhaustive on the topic of rewards, but
it's an important topic because not all believers are guaranteed
to have rewards. There's a difference between
a believer who is saved and eternally secure in Jesus Christ. In other
words, someone who has heard the gospel that Jesus Christ
died on the cross for their sins, they trust that, accept it as
true, believe it 100%, they're saved. But if they don't live
a life of righteousness, and we're rewarded for our righteousness,
They're not going to be rewarded. Does that make sense? It's pretty
straightforward. It's pretty simple. And so rewards
are an important thing. And there's a lot of ideas on
what exactly those rewards are. Now, I personally only like to
go so far as scripture takes us. And sometimes it's fun to
speculate, but I try to do so cautiously. But there's one element
of rewards that I believe are acknowledgements, and those are
the crowns. James 1.12 talks about a crown. 1 Peter 5.4 talks about a crown,
the crown of life. 2 Timothy 4.8 talks about another
crown, that those who look forward to the return of Christ will
receive. That's a crown that I hope our
church, every one of us, might receive. That we're all looking
for the return of Jesus Christ. Now, what are these crowns? Well,
I think, especially when you consider the historical context,
they were crowns that were essentially badges of honor, if you will,
wreaths for victories achieved in Olympic Games or competitions
of that sort. They were acknowledgments In
other words, we are going to receive praise and glory from
God for the things we do now. That's why it's important how
we live this life now. Now, depending on your view,
and I think I've mentioned my grip on this view is getting
weaker and weaker, but regarding the 24 elders of Revelation,
Historically and traditionally, I take the view that that's the
church. I am very much open-minded at this point that that may just
be simply angels. But if they are, as some suggest,
the church, what are they seen doing? Casting their crowns at
whose feet? Jesus's, right? So following
this logic here, crowns are acknowledgments for service, deeds done in the
body. They're casting them at Jesus'
feet, which I think is quite clear what they're acknowledging,
that the glory is His. Everything we do that could be
glorified is His. Now, I think regardless of whether
they're angels or the church, the point stands. If they're
angels, well, apparently angels too will receive crowns. And
they will cast them at Jesus' feet. Now, if they're angels
and not the church, we have a problem with one of my favorite bands,
right? Casting crowns. They have to change their name.
But we'll leave that for another day. So some rewards are acknowledgments,
praises, glory that we receive from the Father with the Son. Some of them are enjoyments.
Daniel 12, 13, at the end of Daniel, the amazing, powerful
book of Daniel, which is why we named our son Daniel, because
it's one of my favorite books. I'm sure your rationale for naming
your son Daniel is similar. I'm sure your rationale for naming
your son Daniel is similar. I'm sure your parents rationale
might be similar. Daniel is a great name because
Daniel was well esteemed by God. Now, at the end of Daniel, after
all this information God is giving him, he tells him to close up
the books. There's no more that you're going
to receive. There will be someone else who receives further information.
But as for you, Daniel, you go your way and you will rest with
your fathers until you are resurrected on the last day and you will
enter into the joy of your inheritance. Now that language of inheritance
is also communicated, as we'll see later in the book of Matthew,
when Jesus is talking about the Jews entering in the joy of their
master, their inheritance. Now, inheritance is somewhat
of a flammable topic, theologically, and there's a couple different
ideas of what exactly that looks like. And we'll explore that
more in the book of Matthew, but I will say me personally,
not every, every believer will have an inheritance, but not
everyone will have the same inheritance. Does that make sense? And it's
been better said, or maybe more illustratively said, everyone's
cup in the kingdom or in heaven will be overflowing, but not
everybody will have the same sized cup. Meaning, those who
were faithful in this life, they'll have one of those big Yetis that
everyone's carrying around these days. Or the mug, if you've seen
Trevor's water jug, the behemoth. Could irrigate an entire field.
Some will have that. And then some, I think I saw
Willa had those little Dixie, I think they're shot cups, but
used for snacks by us for our purposes. Those cups will be
overflowing, but they'll not all be the same size, right?
Why is that? How do we get our cup to be larger?
Well, Ephesians 2.10, right? We were saved for the purpose
of good works, that we should walk in them. Which implies what? We might not walk in them. And
if we don't walk in the good works that God prepared for us,
and oh, by the way, we're rewarded for the good works that we do,
what's going to happen? In my personal view, loss of
rewards, loss of inheritance, our cup shrinks, right? Or maybe
it doesn't grow. But the idea is heaven will be
a glorious place. I've had people say to me, well,
I think Pursuing rewards is improper that seems selfish. I just want
to be with Christ That's all I want and that's good, right?
That's a beautiful thing Except we were told that we need to
be doing good things right good deeds prepared beforehand that
we should walk in them So out of obedience we must do it. Oh
and also I God will bless us. He will reward us for doing the
very things He's calling us to do, the very thing He's enabling
us to do, the very thing that He Himself is doing in and through
us. So some rewards are enjoyment,
and some rewards are, there's a component of responsibilities.
There are passages that talk about us reigning with Christ. That is amazing. Now, I personally
believe that not everyone will have the same degree of reigning.
I like to think of it in terms of, you know, you've got, in
our world, you might have a president, right? Then you've got a governor,
and then you've got a mayor, and then you've got a city councilman,
and then you've got, you know, and the pecking order. It might
not be at all like this. It might be exactly like this.
But I like to think of it in terms of those who are faithful
now, will be given responsibilities during the kingdom in terms of
responsibility and reigning with the Lord. Now, I also have been
exploring a really, I think, important element to the conversation
of rewards, and that is spiritual gifts. We all have spiritual
gifts, right? Those are divine gifts. God gave us those. Oh, and he
also prepared us for good works, meaning that it's not operation
bootstrap. You go do and work hard until
you die. And then whatever you did, you get recompensed for. God has a purpose for each of
you. What that is, I don't know. That's
between you and him. There's different ways to discern
what your spiritual gift is. First of all, try all of them. See what things you naturally
have a propensity towards. And by the way walk by the spirit
and you'll see more you'll be more likely to see what the spiritual
gift is but I think those spiritual gifts have a correlation with
what we'll be doing our Responsibilities and that just makes sense right
because our spiritual gifts are the things our responsibilities
we're doing now so follow me here if we're rewarded for the
deed done in the body the good deeds done in the body and might
our spiritual gifts have some relationship with what we do
for eternity? For example, some of you may protest, but if I
have the spiritual gift of teaching, and we'll use the indicative
for sake of argument, we'll assume it is true, I believe that during
the kingdom I will have some teaching role. Well, won't we
all have the same knowledge? Yes. But won't there be physical
inhabitants that don't have glorified bodies, that need taught? in
the millions and over a thousand years, billions. So I think there
will be a very needy ministry of teaching. What about evangelism? What about shepherding? What
about encouragement? What about the other spiritual
gifts? Maybe God will add a whole other element of spiritual gifts
or a component to the way we interact with each other. I didn't
go. So I think those are important.
So just to summarize, giving is a private affair between us
and God. God himself will reward the right kind of giving. Not
all giving is rewardable. So if you're giving, if you're
sacrificing your hard-earned money, your time, your effort,
whatever it is, don't you want to know if it's going to be rewardable? What we do now determines what
will be done in the kingdom. I know it's hard. Life is... There's three enemies, right?
The world, the flesh, and the devil. And I think they're all
magnetized. In other words, we still have
the flesh. Even though we died to sin and
died to the law, the flesh is still there. And I think there's
a strong magnet of the flesh and the world that draws us into
the world. Worldliness must be avoided by
us. Worldliness is terribly difficult
to avoid. Why? Because we live in the world,
right? It's all around us. And so we're
in the world, not of it, as they say. And so as much as possible,
that's why this prayer scheduler is hopefully a tool that will
help that as you sit down daily. I would encourage and suggest
the morning. That's a great time just to set the tone for the
day. But really, anytime you can sit down, spend time in prayer,
focus on the Lord, praying to him, worshiping him, lifting
him up, and then focusing on your relationship and what he
has called you to do can really set the tone for the rest of
your day. And as you set that discipline
into your life to do that every day, Scientific studies say that
30 days or so becomes a habit. Well, then those habits become
really ingrained spiritual disciplines. I think you can really start
to see some amazing spiritual fruit from this. And so the question,
do we trade kingdom glory for earthly heaven? That's always
the issue, right? This life is temporary. You know,
life is short. That means to some go crazy,
right? Spend like there's no tomorrow,
jump off a cliff, do this, do that, do all these crazy things.
But as Christians, we know there's 1000 years coming and that 1000
years goes into eternity. And so eternity last time I checked
is long, longer than any of our lives longer than this world
has even existed the 6000 some odd years. Don't make the worst trade deal
in the history of trade deals, as someone once said. This one
is actual. Don't trade kingdom glory for
temporary earthly pleasures. Now, I'm not saying having comforts
here are sinful. You're not sinning in doing that.
But anytime you make a purchase, anytime you do something, just
ask yourself. Is this an exchange? Am I exchanging
something that could go heavenly? Or am I being too worldly? Just
always, but again, just be so cautious with that because legalism
can quickly settle in into your life and
you want to avoid that. Now moving into new territory,
five through eight, the practice of worship through personal prayer. Now that's the focus here. The
key word is personal prayer. Some of the things Jesus says
here isn't going to apply necessarily to corporate prayer, right? If
they did apply to corporate prayer, we shouldn't be doing corporate
prayer, right? We shouldn't be praying out loud
to be seen by the corporate body of Christ. Well, there's three
parts to this. Verse 5 gives us the wrong way
of prayer, verses 6-7 gives us the right way of prayer, and
verse 8 gives us the reality of prayer. So in verse 5, the
implication of prayer, similar to giving, there's an implication
that this is something the people of God should be doing. Verse
5 says, And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites,
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the
corners, of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly,
I say to you, they have their reward." So again, the implication
is when you pray. Not if you pray. When you pray.
You should be praying, dear believer. I should be praying, dear believer. The way to avoid is, you shall
not be like the hypocrites. Now I mentioned last week, this
word hypocrite comes from the idea of someone who is an actor,
a play person who would wear a mask. Now, someone who is an
actor wearing a mask, what are they essentially doing? Hiding
their true identity, right? So a hypocrite is someone, the
word has come to mean, someone who says one thing, but does
another thing. That's hypocrisy. So he says,
when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. Now,
who does Jesus have in mind? Who has he had in mind this entire
section? The Pharisees in particular,
but I think we could lump in all the religious leaders, right?
The teachers of Israel. Does this issue happen today
amongst teachers? You bet. And I would hope that
I have a relationship with you all, that if you ever see hypocrisy
in me, Gently lovingly and I would request humbly privately Come
to me and expose that and hopefully I'll be humble enough to change
if not smack me around a little bit But hypocrisy is a serious
thing, right? That's why I mentioned the statement
I said I've been saying this a lot more frequently, but I
mentioned it either last week or a few weeks ago be yourself
and But be your sanctified self, right? Don't try to pretend to
be something you're not. Don't come and, you know, put,
as they say, lipstick on the pig. You know, people see right
through that. Now, the issue in first century
Israel is the people didn't see right through their religious
leaders. They thought they were the peak righteousness. Now,
some did see right through it. And I think it would have been
welcome to hear what Jesus had to say to them, that they're
not righteous. They're self-righteous. That's not true righteousness.
They think they do this and they do that, that they're acceptable
in a perfect, holy, righteous God's sight? Then they are deceived. They're also hypocrites because
their statements, their speech doesn't match their behavior.
How so? Well, he says, for they love
to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets.
that they may be seen by men. Now that word that is purpose
literally with the purpose to be seen. So they're praying in
synagogues or the equivalent, if you will, of church and the
corners of the street, not with the purpose to pray, but with
the purpose to be seen. Do you see the difference? They
want to be seen. And so what's their reward? They're
seen. If they had the purpose of praying
and to be heard by God, they would have their reward. But
that wasn't their purpose. So what's the reward for wrong
prayer? Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. What
was their purpose? Their objective was to be seen
by men. Mission accomplished, God says.
You did it. Enjoy your reward. Enjoy the
fruits of your labors, right? The reward here appears to be
the things sought in praying. So, for the hypocrites, they
were seeking public acknowledgment, not the actual request. So whatever
they said was just really emptiness, and I think God treated it that
way. He didn't listen to them, because they weren't praying
to Him. Do you see? They were communicating, they were speaking,
but not to God. They were speaking to be heard
by men. The people of God should have
a devoted a life devoted to prayer. Prayer should not be hypocritical.
In other words, saying one thing and doing something else. That's
tricky for us, right? Sometimes we know enough of scripture
of how we should be praying, but personally, we haven't really
bought into that. Well, rather than praying hypocritically,
maybe pray, God, I'm a hypocrite in this area. I need help. Soften
my heart towards you in this area, whatever it might be. Prayer
should not be to show off for other people. I think Michael
could and Sarah could probably attest to this, but at Frontier,
any Bible school, I'm sure struggles with this, but it's almost like
a competition, right? When you're a new baby Christian,
you're learning to pray and you're using fancy language. And I remember thinking sometimes
while someone was praying, does that person even know what that
word means? Prayer should not be to show
off for other people. Hypocritical prayer is rewarded
with the praise of men. But is that the reward we want
is the important question. Hypocritical prayer is not rewarded
with the answer to the prayer. So the right way of prayer, verses
6-7, the prayer of God's people, "...but you, when you pray..."
So notice the contrast. There's an expectation of being
different. They're not to pray like the
hypocrites. "...but you, when you pray..." Also the implication,
right? "...go into your room, and when
you have shut your door, pray..." Ah, typo. "...pray to your Father
who is in the secret place." And the Father's reward? The
reward here is the answer to prayer. The one who hears in
secret will give to you the thing that you asked. Now that seems
exciting, right? Anything I ask, the Father will
give me? That's why I preface this by
saying this is not everything scripture has to say about prayer
biblically. We've been exploring Wednesday
night of an important topic of the prerequisites to prayer.
In other words, the prerequirements, what you must do before you pray. One of the tough questions I
asked the group and we had some discussion on is, does God hear? This is a trick question. Everyone's
prayer. Does he hear anyone's prayer? Technically, yes, he hears it. But does he listen? You know,
there's a tragedy that happens in the world. My thoughts and
prayers are with you, which I've always wondered, by the way,
what are what do thoughts do? And I'm not trying to mock that.
But do we even know what we're saying when we say them? Is there
sincerity in the things that we say? Or is it we heard someone
else say it, and it sounded good. And so we Now, I know the intentions
there are to comfort people, right? But why not say that?
I'm sorry for you. If there's anything I can do to comfort
you, let me know. Or, amongst Christians, how often
do we say, I will be praying for you? What if there was a
monitor that kept track of whether or not we actually did pray for
that person? It was encouraged to us at Frontier
Better, instead of saying, I will pray for you. Hey, could I pray
for you right now? If time allows, right? Sometimes
people need to get on and go somewhere, but you know, there's
nothing wrong with just right then and there praying for them.
Or, you know, there's a great tool in the back of the church,
a prayer scheduler that you can now write those things down and
say, you know what? I need to be praying for that
person. I need to commit to doing that
for them because I do care for them. Because that's the reality
is we care for one another. I think we really do want to
pray for them. But then our minds are running
a million miles a second, and we're gone on to the next thing.
And then we forget, right? And so praying in private now,
do you have to literally go into your room? Does that mean you
can't pray in your car? You can't pray? In private, elsewhere,
you have to be in your room, the door has to be shut. If your
hinges are broken and it can't shut all the way, you're sinning.
No, the principle, the emphasis here is private, personal prayer. Why? What is he getting at? It's
between you and God. Our worship of personal prayer
is between us and God. Now, if someone sees you praying
privately, is everything undone? God doesn't hear? No, that's
not what he's getting at. So the second correction, when
you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, literally
repetitive babbling. I've been around people who pray,
it seems like their Father God is their punctuation. Father
God, I pray. Father God, I also pray this.
And Father God, I pray this. And again, I'm not trying to
mock that. I'm just trying to highlight
for you, do we know what we're saying? when we pray? Are we
praying consciously? Or do we shut our brains off
when we pray? This is something we've had a good discussion on
Wednesday night. That's one of the difficulties
of prayer is sometimes you just, you know, you need to do it.
And so you do it and you start doing it. And as you're doing
it, you start to drift a little bit, right? And you kind of just
go through the motions. Don't beat yourself up over that.
Just acknowledge it, get back on track and keep developing
your prayer life. But the idea, especially the
mention of heathens, don't do vain repetitions as the heathen
do, they thought that the more words, the more opportunity of
their gods listening. Jesus says, don't pray like that. Which, the excellent point, by
the way, because we're going to look at this next week. What
is, starting in verse 9, in this manner, therefore pray, Our Father
in heaven, hallowed be your name, I grew up Roman Catholic, and
when you sin or do something naughty as a little boy and you
confess it to the priest, they would prescribe, like a doctor
would, 10 Hail Marys, 30 Our Fathers. And when you study a
passage like this, the irony is very strong that Jesus himself
says, when you pray, do not use vain, literally empty repetition. Now we're going to explore what
exactly did Jesus mean in this manner, pray, and we'll look
at what is called the Lord's Prayer. I actually think the
Lord's Prayer is in John 15 through 17. That's the true Lord's Prayer. But there is a lot of really
important things about prayer that we can learn from Jesus.
But it's just ironic that right after saying don't use vain repetitions,
we vainly repeat Our Father, right? For they think that they
will be heard for their many words. The people of God should have
a life devoted to prayer. We've covered that. Jesus emphasizes
that personal prayer should be between the one praying and God. The Father will answer prayer
done the right way. Now, next week, I'll look at
some of the prerequisites to prayer that we've explored on
Wednesday night, because they're important. God doesn't just hear
all our prayers. There are prerequisites, one
of which is, are we in fellowship with God? Now, I use the imagery,
it's almost like a hypothetical scenario. If we're living out
of fellowship with God, and we approach Him in prayer, and we
just start giving these requests and these supplications, and
they're even well-meaning, and we're praying for people we love
and care about, and disaster in the world, and we're praying
for our country and all those things, but we're not in fellowship with
Him, it's like God is sitting there and saying, don't you think
we need to talk about something first? What about us? Right? As if God would say. Why
is it that way? Because God cares for you. Yes,
God cares for the world. He wants to answer your prayers.
He wants to demonstrate His omnipotent power, His benevolence towards
us, His grace, His mercy, His love. All of those things are
true. But you know what's true most of all? He loves you. So much so, He sent His Son to
die for you, right? And if He sent His Son to die
for you, and you believe that wonderful truth, you have everlasting
life, you are His child. Do you think he wants to spend
time with his child? He wants to get to know his child?
Or better said, he wants his child to get to know him? You
bet. So the Father will answer prayer
done the right way. Empty repetition does not make
God here anymore. There are prerequisites to prayer.
The reality of prayer, we'll get through verse 8 apologetically
quickly, but we'll review some of this next time too. Therefore
do not be like them and in the reality of prayer. For your father
knows the things you have need of before you ask him. Hold on. Not all prayer is heeded by God.
We'll get to that in a moment. Prayer does not inform God of
our needs. Did you know that? We're not informing God when
we pray, right? Oh, let me write that down. I
didn't know that. Thanks, I'll be praying for that person too.
So why do we pray? Again, verse 8, "...therefore
do not be like them, for your Father knows..." If I remember
correctly, it's in the perfect tense, which means literally
has known. He has known, and He continues
to know, and He will continue to know into the future. the
things you have need of before you ask Him. So why ask Him? Why do we pray? Have you ever
thought about that? After all, just thinking logically,
if God is omniscient, He's all-knowing, He knows everything, He even
knows the future, wouldn't He know what we're praying before?
Of course He would. So why pray? And I think we talked about this
Wednesday night, but it gets to the very heart of what prayer
is. Prayer is communication with God. Now, I like to think of
things, you know, Sarah mentioned being a word nerd downstairs.
I, too, am a word nerd. And I like to think of things
etymologically. In other words, the history and
kind of the linguistic principles of a word. And communication,
we get the word common, right? So in order to communicate, you
have to have a certain degree of commonness. Ideally, language,
right? If you have language and culture,
even better, right? Because we might speak English
and go to Britain, but there's going to be some things lost
in communication, right? There's degrees of commonness. Prayer is our communication with
God. And even though God knows what we need before we ask, He
encourages us to ask, I think, so that we get on and stay on
the same page as God. Because God is actively working
in your life. And when you are praying, and
you have a life devoted to prayer, you're accepting that. You're
on board with that. You are yielding to the Creator
in what He wants to accomplish in your life. So if you weren't
convinced already, now do you see why prayer is important? Here's the difficulty with prayer.
It takes two people, but it's one-sided, right? How do you
have a conversation with someone who doesn't verbally, audibly
speak back? That's hard, right? And that's
why I think some of us struggle. Sometimes it can feel strange,
weird, and we don't know how to do it. We don't know what
to say, especially, or not especially, forget that. I want to close
with this. One thing that was really helpful
in my prayer life, personal prayer life, before praying, Just stop. Now don't get any weird creepiness
of empty your mind and those sort of things. Just stop. Take
some breaths, no creepy breaths. Some deep breaths. And really
focus on the Lord. And one thing I've pictured is,
you know, we're invited to come boldly to the throne of grace.
I try to picture that throne. And it calms my heart. and I
settle in, and then I realize, I'm talking to my Creator. And
that has changed my prayer life. Now sometimes, life is busy,
it's hectic, I don't always do that, right? Sometimes I start
being hypocritical. You know what I was saying. Because
we have common language, right? But sometimes I'm hypocritical,
And it's as if God is saying, Jacob, stop. Let's get real here,
right? I know I said I'd close with
this, but I want to talk about this prayer structure real quick.
Some of you might be familiar with Acts, Adoration, Confession,
Thanksgiving. Someone properly said, well,
confession really belongs before that. So they did cats. Confession,
adoration, thanksgiving, supplication. I suggest my structure, confession,
exaltation, thanksgiving, and love. Kettle. I like it because
kettle, you know, think of a kettle bell getting stronger. Our prayer
life makes us stronger. I will break down what exactly
this means next time because we're past time, but prayer is
important. If you're not doing it, you need
to. If you need help, reach out, talk to me, Pastor Dave, one
of the other elders, someone who's been walking with the Lord
for any amount of time. We need to be praying because
I think if we're not, we are spiritually disabled. We are
ineffective in our personal life, but also corporately, because
we are doing things without the power of God, asking Him to work
on our behalf. Why would we ever? And that's
why I mentioned that gal at the beginning who said, that's about
all I can do. Surely it's enough. In fact,
we need more of it, right? We need more prayer warriors.
With that, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much
for your word. We thank you again for the salvation
we have through your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the
freeness of that gift, that faith alone, in Christ alone, gives
us the precious, unchangeable gift of everlasting life that
cannot be lost. Lord, you desire us to live good
works and that done through your spirit, your work in and through
us. I pray, Lord, as you work in and through us, we'd be mindful
of what you would have us let go of, change, correct and pick
up as far as good habits. And I pray, Lord, that this prayer
scheduler would be a help towards that end. We love you, Lord,
and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.
Matthew 6:5-8
Series The Book of Matthew
| Sermon ID | 71624192593790 |
| Duration | 42:48 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 6:5-8 |
| Language | English |
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