Prayer is something so simple that a child can understand it and yet so profound that the wisest Christian still has questions. That's what our faith is like: simple, yet filled with mystery. I've been pointing to the importance of prayer in my sermons recently so it seemed good to take a closer look at it, or at least that's I how interpreted what the Spirit was doing with me this week. My goal is modest: to chip away at the mystery a little so that we can all make some progress in our prayers. Let's see what God will do.
The first thing to notice in our text is that Jesus says 'when' and not 'if'. 'When you pray...' I can remember no place in the Scriptures where Jesus argues for prayer. He never lists reasons why His disciples should pray. For Him, prayer is a given. It is something that He just assumes that His followers will do. And this isn't about those passing moments of prayer, which are good and necessary in the right situation. Jesus is talking about those set times of prayer, structured prayer. And that's clear because He is about to present what we call 'The Lord's Prayer', a model, in six parts, for daily, structured prayer. Jesus simply assumes that we will do this. So, my first thought for you is this. A faithful disciple of Jesus is a praying disciple of Jesus. That's a fact of being a Christian. If this is not true of you, then you need to make some changes. As you start to establish this daily habit of prayer, you will probably need to begin with two simple requests of God. The first: 'Please forgive my prayerlessness.' The second: 'Please help me to pray.' As you utter these two requests, remember the Gospel. There is grace for sinners, grace to forgive you and grace to change you. You will never change yourself. That is something that only the Spirit can do. But He is ready to change you. Just ask Him. It's something that you can pray about.
The next thing to notice is that Jesus warns us that there is a wrong way to pray. Here, He talks about the hypocrites. '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.' Now, I'm sure that many have read this and then told themselves, 'Well, I don't have to worry about this. I never pray out loud before others.' But bear in mind that Jesus often gives an illustration to establish a principle. Jesus' point isn't about impressing crowds. His point is about pride. And a person can pray in the wrong way, pray in pride, even when the only person hearing his prayer is himself. How many are impressed with their own prayers! It might have to do with how long they pray or how profound their requests seem or even that they have established a daily habit of prayer. That, obviously, makes them so much better than all those other people who don't do nearly as well. The issue isn't how many hear you. The issue for Jesus is pride. That's what is going on in the hypocrite's heart. How odd to be proud about your prayers.
Having warned us about the wrong way, Jesus goes on to tell us about the right way. '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.' Prayer is an intimate conversation with your heavenly Father. I'm guessing that some of you have never had an intimate conversation with your earthly father or mother - a conversation that was completely honest and open, a conversation where secrets of the heart could be discussed. So, talking about prayer in this way, as an intimate conversation with your heavenly Father, doesn't quite click. You understand the words, but the concept is foreign. It's not your fault. In this, you've been sinned against. But, again, remember the Gospel. There is grace to make profound changes.
But, even in the best of situations, our prayers are not always an intimate conversation with our heavenly Father. Jesus points to one cause for that in the next verse. '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.' I know this fellow who always begins his prayers, 'Our great and gracious God'. Now, our God is great, and He is certainly gracious. But I always wonder, 'Is he thinking about what he is praying? Is that real?' I don't have an answer to that. But if he hasn't considered his words, they have become an empty phrase. And it is so easy for us to fall into that. 'Dear God please bless so and so.' What exactly are we asking God to do? If we know, then let's say it. Are we asking God for the blessing of conversion, of miraculous healing, of receiving the grace to endure a hard time for Jesus' sake? Or have we fallen into using some empty phrase? We are taught to pray in Jesus' name. But even that can become an empty phrase tacked on to the end of our prayers if we don't know why we are saying it. You can't have an intimate conversation with your heavenly Father if you're just saying words out of thoughtless habit. You need to think about your prayers. You need to think about what you want to discuss with your Father. Better two real sentences from the heart than a couple of paragraphs of empty phrases. In time, two real sentences will become pages and pages of heartfelt words.
Let's move on. My third point has to do with what, at first, seems an odd statement and yet, if you think about it, it really isn't. 'Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.' God knows before we ask? So, why should we bother to pray? Now, I said that it is an odd statement that really isn't. Think about it: is there anything going on in your life that your heavenly Father doesn't know about? Would you ever expect God to respond to your prayers by saying, 'Oh, I'm glad you told me about that. I had no idea!' Of course your Father knows your needs before you ask! But that still leaves our question, 'Why should we bother to pray?' I have two verses that fit here. I'm sure that there are others, but the Spirit brought these two to mind. The first is from the Psalms (of course): '... call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.' According to this bit of Scripture, we pray so that we can glorify God for His answers. Now, remember, glorify is a church word that we've translated before. It means to make much of God or to make God look good. And so, from another Psalm. 'Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.' The psalmist wants to make much of God because of the many good things that He has done for him. And that's what prayer is for. We pray so that we can glorify God for His answers. Paul's famous exhortation - with a slight twist - fits here. 'So, whether you eat or drink, or say your prayers, do all to the glory of God.' Seeing prayer in this way changes things. Prayer is no longer primarily about me. Prayer is first and foremost about God and making Him look good. That is why we pray.
But prayer is not only about God. It is also about you. So, listen to the second verse that the Spirit gave me, which comes (of course) from the Gospels. Jesus is speaking. 'Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.' I've said that before, and I'll say it again. Jesus' great desire is for you to flourish. And flourishing is a matter of joy. Happiness in this fallen world is fleeting. Everything here dies. But joy is tied to what God - Father, Son and Spirit - does. That can never die.
David plans to build a house for God, a temple. But God has other plans. 'No, I will build a house, a dynasty, for you, David. Your sons will sit on your throne forever.' David's response? 'Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God! And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it. Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.' Do you see what David is doing? He is glorifying his God. He has seen His God in a new, more profound way. David is stunned. He is awed by his God. And so, he rejoices in Him. David's heart overflows. His God has made his joy full. And that, also, is why we pray.
Earlier in our text Jesus mentioned the promise of reward. 'And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.' I find myself intrigued by this idea of reward. And as I consider it from time to time, I come back to the same basic idea. The reward is God, more and more of God. Consider David again. He has been rewarded with more of God. That's why he's stunned. Getting to know your Father in His astonishing love and tireless patience, getting to enjoy Jesus and what He has done for you and continues to do for you, getting to experience the Spirit and His unlimited power as He changes you into something beyond your imagining - the reward is God. You have been made to enjoy and experience your God - Father, Son, Spirit. But it is a sad fact that you don't enjoy Him as much as you might. Your sin interferes with that. Instead of enjoying the comfort and joy of knowing your God, you find yourself afraid of the future and the unknowns that it will bring. You find yourself trying to build walls of protection, walls that do not calm your heart. You find yourself angry or doubting or working hard to keep from thinking about the troubles of this life. You were made for better than this. You were made to know your God and rejoice in Him and in what it means that He is your Father, and because of that joy, to live free of all these stresses. Do you know what will get you more of that joy, what will move the process forward? Your prayers. As you learn how to have those intimate conversations with your Father and then see Him respond to you out of His boundless love, you will be rewarded, remade into what you were intended to be, someone who is thriving and full of joy, someone who will be forever happy because of your God. But you must pray.
So, I encourage you to strive in your prayers. It will be hard. And the difficulty of establishing and maintaining your prayer life isn't about something like your schedule. That is easily changed, if you're willing to pay the price. It will be hard because the last thing the evil one wants is a praying Christian. But greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. And you will experience the truth of that more clearly as you pray.
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