Strathalbyn Church of Christ

Matthew 6:7-15. Theme: The Christians’ prayer

Sermon by Pastor David Williams. Strathalbyn Church of Christ. 5 Feb 2023.

Why don’t we pray?

Prayer is a problem for us. Prayer meetings are the worst attended of all church meetings. Some never pray, or only as a last resort. Very few are content with our prayer life.

Yet – we have the privilege of prayer – of praying to our Maker, our Saviour and our Judge. Incredible access that the rest of the world do not know. We are commanded to pray. We have instructions on how to pray. We are promised that our prayers will be heard. We have great needs to pray for – for ourselves, our families, our church and our world.

So why don’t we pray? It may help if we go back to basics and understand what true prayer is.

Christian prayer is different

Christian prayer is different. Radically different. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ followers stand apart from both the religious and the pagans. For instance, we obey God’s law from the heart – not just the letter of the law like the Pharisees. And we love our enemies – not just our friends as the pagans do. And this difference is also seen in how we pray. Different from the Pharisee who prays selfishly and the pagan who prays mechanically, without thinking.

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.

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.

Do not heap up empty phrases. Repeated prayer is not wrong, for Jesus himself prayed the same prayer three times, Mt 26:44 (as did Paul, 2 Cor 12:8). And Jesus calls us to be persistent in prayer: _Ask and keep on askin_g (Mt 7:7-8, Lk 18:1-8). The problem is not repetition, but mindless prayer. Praying without engaging the mind is pointless. What sort of God will hear meaningless babble?

We see this in Buddhism. Mantras repeated over and over. Mechanical prayer is taken to even greater extremes with prayer wheels which are spun to do the praying for you! Or prayer flags – where the wind does the work of praying! Many mantras have no actual meaning. Indeed, they are repeated to empty the mind of thought. To describe this as meditation is misleading. True Christian meditation is mulling over God’s word - the mind is fully engaged. Buddhist meditation is the complete opposite. A word of warning – many so-called Christian meditation teachers now include Buddhist practices. They see all meditation as the same.

The rosary can lead also to mindless prayers. Also, it falsely seeks the aid of Mary instead of her Son as our only mediator (1 Tim 2:5). What about using set prayers in worship? Anglicans, Catholics and Lutherans all do this. These too can become mindless – but so can informal prayers. Informal prayers can be mindless platitudes and churchy jargon. Jesus’ concern was not with our method of prayer, but whether our mind and heart are engaged.

God gave us minds to use. We are to love God with all our minds. Scripture tells us we are to chew over God’s word (2 Tim 2:7), handle it rightly (2 Tim 2:15), let it judge our thoughts (Heb 4:12), meditate on it (Josh 1:8, Ps 119:15, Ps 1:2), teach it (Dt 11:19; Rom 15:4; 2 Tim 2:2, 3:14-17), remember it, memorise it (Prov 3:1, Hos 4:6), understand it (Prov 4:7, Ac 8:30), use it to correct, rebuke and train (2 Tim 3:16-17), study it (Ez 7:10; Ac 17:11, 2 Pet 3:15-16), and recite it (Mt 4:4, 1 Tim 4:13). We cannot do any of these without engaging our minds.

You don’t need to be a professor. You don’t even need to be literate. People from oral cultures have astounding abilities to remember words spoken and heard. They are better at listening and obeying. In contrast, academics are good at filing away teaching in their grey matter, and never thinking about it again. Christians, we need to recover the use of our minds! And use our minds to apply what we learn through action.

What is the point?

8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

So what is the point of praying at all? Luther put it this way “By our praying … we are instructing ourselves more than we are him.” There is a lot of wisdom in that.

You pull apart some troublesome machine. There are bits everywhere and you are trying to make some sense of the instructions – translated from Japanese into English by someone fluent in Korean. Then young Thomas turns up all eager to help. Waving a spanner about, he nearly breaks the only bit that works properly. What can you get him to do that will be safe for him and the machine? What to do? You start him talking – he can tell you all about the machine and how it works, and what you should do next. And you listen and encourage him on. He’s safe, he’s engaged, and he’s learning. That’s a bit like God. We have a lot to learn, and prayer is a way to be involved in God’s plan of salvation without mucking it up too much. Now there is perhaps a better theological explanation of prayer than that but it may get you started!

The Christians’ Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer should be called the Christians’ prayer – for Jesus taught us to pray it. He didn’t need it himself – he didn’t need to ask for forgiveness. Ironically, this prayer can be repeated mindlessly – like the mindless babble Jesus had just condemned. I wonder how many politicians are really engaged when the Lord’s Prayer is read out in Parliament.

There are two versions: Matthew’s and Luke’s. Matthew said,

Pray then like this

It is a model. We make up our own prayers like this one. Luke said,

When you pray, say

- by repeating the words. What should we do? We need not choose – but can do both. Let it be a model that we can adapt. And let us also repeat it as it is. Both are helpful when we pray thoughtfully and sincerely. Indeed, it is good to pray the words of scripture: either repeating some verses as our own prayer or letting the truths in scripture inform the way we pray.

1. Who we pray to

“Our Father in heaven,

The Pharisee prays to a god who couldn’t care less about his hypocrisy. The pagan prays to a robot god who responds to mechanical mutterings. But the God we pray to is very different. This makes a huge difference in our prayers.

a. God is personal

God is as much ‘he’ as I am ‘I’ – he is real and he is personal. He is more personal than I am! He is no abstract ground of our being. We are not addressing some vague spirit, or mysterious force. Being personal, he has real feelings. Being personal, we relate to him and speak with him, knowing he will respond.

b. God is Loving

God is loving. God is Father.

A word on gender. Just as the world is confused on human genders, so the church is confused on how to address God. Read my article in today’s newsletter. God does not have gender. He is not male or female.

Yet God is addressed as Father. But God is not like a human father. That is starting at the wrong end. God is the true father. He is the gold standard of true fatherhood. Even the best of fathers is a pale reflection of him. He is not a father like some have – erratic, cruel, arbitrary, selfish, indulgent, or absent. He is the most loving being in the universe. If you want to see a true father, don’t look at the father of the year, look at God. As Father his deep desire is to do what is best for his children. That is that one we pray to.

c. God is Powerful

God is not just good but great. His power is without limit. Our father is in heaven. He rules over all space and time. He is the beginning and the end, Creator and Judge. As Father his loving kindness is without limit. As ruler his power is without limit. This is the God we pray to. Pause before we pray - to remember who he is. Knowing his love and power, we will come confidently to him. We know he is willing and able to help us. This will change _what _we pray about in two ways. These two ways are seen in the two halves of the Lord’s prayer.

2. Praying for God’s glory

While the Pharisee is concerned for his own reputation, the Christian is concerned for God’s glory. Our first priority is for your name, your kingdom, your will.

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,
your will be done,

Our greatest desire is to see his name honoured, his Kingdom revealed, and his will done in all areas of life.

a. Name

hallowed be your name.

God’s name stands for God himself – who he is and what he does. God’s name is already holy. That is, it is unique, far above any other name in creation. But our desire is to see that holiness recognised – in our own lives, in the church and in the world, as people come to honour him.

But is that really our desire? It should be, for our God is awesome. Regrettably, that word has lost its value – today a chocolate bar can be awesome. And we become blasé about God – we take him for granted. But encounters with God in scripture were life changing (Gen 28:16-22; 32:22-32; Ex 3; 33:17-23; 1 Ki 19:9-18; Isa 6:1-8; Jer 1:6-10; Ac 9:1-22; Rev 1:17). We need to recover a sense of awe when we stand in the presence of the Almighty. What a difference that would make in our lives. What a difference in the church. And think of the impact on outsiders as they see people who have stood in the presence of a holy God. Let us pray that God’s holy name will be honoured.

b. Kingdom

Your kingdom come

God’s kingdom is his rule. God is already King over the world and its history. But like his name, his kingdom is not recognised. God’s kingdom broke into our world when he sent his son. Jesus began to reign as people recognised him as king – they left the kingdom of darkness for his kingdom of light. We pray that his kingdom will grow as more people know him as king. We also long for his return when his kingdom will be completed - when Satan and evil will cease.

c. Will

your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus prayed, Lord, not my will but yours be done.

Our prayer is not to have our own way – for God to deliver our plans. What a disaster that would be! No, our prayer is for God who is infinite in love, knowledge and power to carry out his good and perfect will. His will is already done in heaven. We pray that his will may be done on earth too as more come to follow him.

This prayer rebukes our self-centred ways. I’m concerned about my own little name (getting excited when I hear it mentioned), and my little kingdom (pushing our own agenda) and my little will (wanting my own way). But when I put God’s name, kingdom and will first, I see how foolish and trivial my own selfish concerns are.

3. Praying for our needs

Your now turns to our. To our needs. But should we bother God with our own trivial concerns? That is just as wrong as praying only for our own needs and nothing else.

In coming to our Father, we are to

cast all your cares on him, for he cares for you, 1 Pet 5:7.

The prayer covers all our needs: material, spiritual and moral. We must depend on God for everything, as a little child depends on his parent for everything. This is a rebuke to us Aussies. We are self-reliant. That is good, but there is a proud and stubborn side to it. No-one can tell me what to do. I don’t need anyone’s help – I can do anything.

a. Material

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

Bread stands for all we need for living – food, clothing, health, shelter, family and a good government. We are to pray for our needs - not our wants – for luxuries. It is a daily prayer. The poor get this. So do farmers who love the Lord – they well know how dependant on God they are each day, when a crop can be wiped out by a single storm. The rest of us can be lured into a false security with our investments, insurance and health care. But this can so quickly collapse as we have seen with COVID and floods. We are all but a heartbeat away from eternity.

b. Spiritual

12 _and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors…
_

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.

Like bread, forgiveness is a daily need – the soul needs forgiveness like the body needs bread. Those who know God’s forgiveness have a forgiving spirit. Once you realise the enormous debt that Jesus paid for your sins, you will forgive the trivial debts that others owe you. Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant is a warning about holding on to our petty grudges. The servant was forgiven 10,000 talents, but he would not forgive one who owed just 100 denarii (Mt 18:23-35). In today’s currency, his debt was $3.6 billion, impossible to repay, just as our debt to Jesus can never be repaid. And what he was owed was only $4,000.[1] Yet he would not forgive that measly sum. If you struggle to know God’s forgiveness – is there some grudge that you are holding onto? We will not understand forgiveness while we hold onto grudges.

c. Moral needs

13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

There are two difficulties with this verse:

1. God doesn’t tempt us to evil.

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God … himself tempts no one. Jas 1:13.

Why ask God not to lead us into temptation when God has promised never to tempt us?

2. Temptation is good for us.

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, Jas 1:2-4.

If temptations are good for us, shouldn’t we pray, please lead us into temptation? Temptations are good when we learn to resist them. For that builds our resilience, our spiritual muscles. But temptations are bad when we repeatedly give up and sin. Perhaps we can understand the verse better if we word it this way:

Don’t allow us to be led into temptation so that it overwhelms us but rescue us from the evil one.

Conclusion

The prayer is a model of true Christian prayer – unlike the self-obsessed Pharisee, the Christian is obsessed with God glory. Unlike the mechanical prayers of the pagan, the Christian’s prayer is thoughtful and sincere. The Christian applies his heart and mind in trusting his heavenly father.

It begs the question – what sort of god does the Pharisee or pagan pray to? The Pharisee – so obsessed with himself – hardly pays any attention to God. His god is an absent, uninterested god. A god who is deaf to his selfish heart. The pagan – so mindless and mechanical – What god is he praying to? A robot? One that responds like a computer to whatever drivel he enters into it?

Our prayers tell us about the sort of God we believe in. What sort of God do you believe in? How is that reflected in your prayers? Let us repent of our wrong notions of God. Let us remember again that we stand in the presence of a holy God. His name, kingdom and will are perfect, powerful and loving. He is Abba Father, always standing ready to hear and respond to the prayers of his children.

Can we pray together the prayer our Lord taught us?

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

In your name, Jesus, Amen.

Source:

· Stott J. R. W. (2020). The message of the Sermon on the Mount: Christian Counter-Culture (Revised). IVP Academic

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[1] Boice, J.M., The Parables of Jesus. Moody Press, 1983.

Series: Matthew

Topics: #Matthew , #Prayer , #Meditation , #Mind , #Fatherhood , #Temptation