Sermon on Prayer: Mt. 6:5-13

I gave the following sermon on prayer at our house church recently. My text was Mt. 6:5-13. Click on the chart images below to view them.

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INTRODUCTION

The mission of our house church is impossible in human terms. What we’ve set ourselves to do is impossible to be done by us. We have set a goal for our Body that is impossible for us to fulfill.

Let me explain: our chief goal is to glorify God by helping initiate a church planting movement among Muslims in our city. This goal assumes one major thing that is impossible for us to accomplish on our own, namely, the conversion of Muslims to Christ. No length of just hanging out with Muslims will, alone, transfer Muslims from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of the King of Kings; from darkness to light; from the power of Satan to God. This is, in itself, a supernatural work of God alone. In other words, we have set a goal for this church that only God can bring about. I hope this is sobering thought for us all. What is impossible for us, is very very possible for God. Nothing is impossible for Him (Mt. 19:26), not even putting a “camel through the eye of a needle”.

What I hope this brings home is that we are absolutely dependent on God moving among us. On God opening our mouths to proclaim the gospel and moving in power to bring the spiritually dead to life. I am pumped about our goals because they wage everything on the power of God.

We know from God’s Word that His power is directly associated with 2 things:

The proclamation of the gospel: Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

The prayers of God’s people: 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

We have been, so far, doing these two things well. It’s ridiculous how much God is moving among us. We, as a community, are reaching out to Muslims. We are hanging with them, serving them, and sharing with them. But since our goal is not just to hang with them, serve them, and merely share with them, but rather to see churches started among them… we are in desperate need of God’s power. Therefore, today we will meditate together on prayer.

THE TEXT: MATTHEW 6:5-13

First we will focus on v. 5-6 and then v. 7-13, and then I hope to draw some conclusions.

V. 5-6: The Prayer of Hypocrites

First, in v. 5-6 Jesus focuses mainly on the motivation for prayer.

Object: The object of comparison to which Jesus refers are the “hypocrites”: Gr: used to refer to play actors who used a mask to act their part. The picture is that they are impersonators.

Posture: they “stand” and pray in the synagogues. Turn with me to Luke 18:9-14. We are going to refer back to this passage for a picture of what Jesus is talking about. Notice that the Pharisee is “standing by himself” — a posture revealing his foolish boldness and self righteousness.

Place: He goes to the synagogue to pray. Note that the hypocrites “love” to go their. They don’t love to pray for its own sake, they just like to go to the synagogue to be seen acting like they are praying.

Audience: other people.

Motivation: Pride. This is really the exact nature of the hypocrisy; this man puts on a mask of sincerity and piety, when in fact all he wants is exaltation from others.

The result: “They have received their reward”: the result of their fake piety is the temporary, shallow, attention of man. Glory to self. This has a ring of tragedy in it. Almost like an ancient Roman stage play: the tragedy is that for all his hard work feigning piety, all this man gets is temporary attention from the crowds.

V. 6: Example of Christ for Us

I know that in v. 6, Jesus is giving us His command, but I thought it would be useful to look at these commands in light of His actual example to us.

Posture: Reverence. The point is sanctity over ceremony. Jesus never made a huge hooplaw when He prayed. Let’s look back at Luke 18:13 for another example that Jesus gave.

Place: Closed room, in the secret. Greek: “private chamber”. This is not implying that it is wrong to pray in public (Jesus did that in fact, Mt. 14:19); rather this is speaking to the issue of Audience. We see that Jesus had a practice of praying in private, Mark 1:35, “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”

When you pray in private, there is no kidding yourself, it is just you and God. No one else can hear or see you. This command aids us as we are so prone to self centeredness when we pray (aren’t we!). How many of us have thought about what others are thinking about us when we pray in public! The practice of praying in secret is an antidote to that temptation. In fact, it is my contention that the more you pray in private, the less you will be tempted to self exact in public prayer.

Audience: the “Father”. We know that Jesus always prayed to the Father (John 17:1).

Motivation: Fellowship with the Father. In your closed room it is just you and God. The only motivation that will sustain you in prayer is enjoyment of God’s presence. You will get tired of just asking for things if you don’t enjoy his presence. As an example from the life of Jesus, think about what Jesus did in His most trying moment, before the cross. He went to the Father in prayer. He desired His fellowship, His presence (Mt. 26:36-46).

The Result: God’s attention. In effect, this kind of secret prayer get’s God’s attention and brings God the glory. This is, in fact, the chief result of our faithful praying: God get’s the glory. Listen to the first sentence of Jesus’s high priestly prayer: “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” (John 17:1)

V. 7-8: Jesus gives us more insight into how he wants us to pray, this time focusing more on the method for God pleasing prayer. In v. 9-13 Jesus focuses on the content of prayer.

The subject of comparison here are the “Gentiles”. I.e., the pagan. Looking into the usage of the Greek word for pray (as used in this entire passage) gives us insight into this comparison Jesus is drawing and how those originally listening to Jesus probably interpreted this. The Greek word for prayer here (Proseuchomai) was the general word for “pray” but also used in classical Greek as the technical term for the pagan act of calling on a the gods. Thus, we will see how Jesus draws a comparison with these pagans who “pray” to their gods.

Content and Method: Jesus says that the pagans “heap up empty phrases” (ESV). NASB: “meaningless repetition”. KJV: “vain repetitions”. The NIV is my favorite as it translates this “babbling”. The Greek here literally means “to repeat idly”. In fact, the Greek word – Battalogeo – probably had a sense of onomatopoeia in it (sounds like what it means) – the present day equivalent might be “Jabber” (he just jabbers: jabber jabber jabber). I lived in India for 2 months in 1998. I remember there hearing and watching the Tibetin Buddhists in northern India go through repetition after repetition of prayer. Specifically, they say one phrase thousands of times over in an effort to gain eternal security: Om Hambi Padme Hum. This prayer is merely lip-labour, devoid of true spiritual power. I suspect that we can say that this is how God hears these empty repetitious prayers (like Charlie Brown hears his teacher): “wah wah wah wah wah wah”.

Now it is obviously not wrong to repeat things in our prayers. For one thing, both Jesus and Paul did it (Mt. 26:36-46, 2 Cor. 12:7-8). The issue here in this passage is not really how many times you ask for something, but rather your sincerity. Is your request empty routine or sincere petition? One man said, “All of us have one routine prayer in our system; and once we get rid of it, then we can really start to pray!” (Dr. Robert Cook, quoted in Wiersbe, Warren, The Bible Exposition Commentary, V. 1, Chariot Victor, 1989). In other words, it is the difference between “saying your prayers” and “praying your prayers”.

Doctrine: Your method of praying is a product of your doctrine. The pagan gods are needy of our help, our information… our Father, as Jesus said in v. 8, “already knows what you need before you ask him.”

God-pleasing prayers

Content: Reflecting on the Lords prayer in v. 9-13, we observe that it is simple, rich, comprehensive, and full of truth.

Method: Instead of lip-labour, Jesus calls us to humble faith. There is no formula or prayer wheel or mantra. The Lord’s prayer is one of great faith. It is a simple prayer of faith for God’s will to be done, for daily provision, for forgiveness of sins, for protection, and so on. Oh how important this contrast is with the pagan prayer. How many times do we forget that God responds to faith and not to our formulas! We so often think that we have to say “the right words” at the “right moment” to initiate some magical coercion of God to do our bidding. We of course are to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Length is not the issue here, but rather faith.

Doctrine (v. 8): Unlike the pagan gods, our “Father” is all knowing, all powerful and all gracious. We don’t pray to teach God anything. We pray for the sake of fellowship with Him. Our doctrine shapes our prayers.

Summary Chart: