If you had the opportunity to talk to the Creator of the Universe, would you take advantage of it? The answer to that question may be obvious, but, sadly, many Christians forfeit the privilege of talking to God in prayer regularly. In this message from David Platt from Matthew 6:6, we’re encouraged and invited to be intentional about talking to God and spending time with him through prayer and fasting. Amazingly, the One we pray to has made it possible to call on him as our Heavenly Father by sending his own Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and make us sons and daughters by faith.
If you had the opportunity to talk to the Creator of the Universe, would you take advantage of it? The answer to that question may be obvious, but, sadly, many Christians forfeit the privilege of talking to God in prayer regularly. In this message from David Platt from Matthew 6:6, we’re encouraged and invited to be intentional about talking to God and spending time with him through prayer and fasting. Amazingly, the One we pray to has made it possible to call on him as our Heavenly Father by sending his own Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins and make us sons and daughters by faith.
You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from pastor, author and teacher David Platt. If you have a Bible and I hope you or somebody around you does that you can look on with. Let me invite you to open with me to Matthew, chapter 6. Feel free to use table of contents if you need to, but Matthew, chapter 6 and, as you're turning, I want to welcome those of you and Arlington and Loudon and PW and MoCo and others online who are unable to be with us physically today, and especially those of you who are visiting with us today. My name is David, I'm one of the pastors here and we are really glad you're here. Please bear with my voice. Struggle in a bit. Today, basketball season is in full sway and I'm coaching a few teams and particularly corralling 7 year olds on the court. It can take a lot out of you and especially when you lose something like 60 to 4, yesterday was a rough one, but man, those two baskets. I was going nuts. It was for high moments, high moments, and it's a variety of low, mini low moments. But anyway, today is a new day, and especially today as we, a church, are beginning three weeks of intentional prayer and fasting together here at the start of this year. So you can find information about this. You can sign up to get encouragement along these lines, mcclainbobbleorg slash 21 days. At that site you can get all kinds of resources. Our hope is to help one another start the year off right in our relationships with God, and you'll also find information there about prayer gatherings and our different locations over the next few weeks, including a church-wide prayer gathering that's happening this Friday night, lord willing, here at Tyson's at 7 pm. You do not want to miss this Friday as we come together from across all of our locations to seek God with each other. For today, though, I want to show you one verse in the Bible that if you do what this one verse says to do, it will completely change your life. And I know that may sound like exaggeration or overstatement, especially if you're visiting or exploring Christianity, but for every single person listening right now and any person who listens in the future, regardless of who you are, what your background is, how old you are, from the youngest to the oldest, I guarantee you that if you do what this one verse says to do, it will totally change your life. One verse spoken by Jesus and we're just going to take it word by word, phrase by phrase. So it comes in the middle of what's known as Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is teaching about prayer, and listen to what he says. Matthew, chapter 6, verse 6. 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. All right, so let's just dive in, but when you pray, let's just pause there and realize what Jesus is saying here. Jesus says giving an invitation for you and me, for any one of us, to meet with God, with the Creator of all things, the one who spoke and the world came into being. The one who calls the stars by name, causes the rain to fall, the wind to blow. The God who created you and eight billion other people on the planet Just think about it. The one who crafted you and forms you. The God who is sustaining your beating heart and your breathing lungs right now. The God who knows you better than you know yourself and who knows far better than you what is best for your life, as the one who made you. The God who is ultimately in control of everything going on in your life and the God who is ultimately in control of everything that's going on in the entire world. Jesus is saying you have an open invitation to meet with Him, alone with God. I think about the first time I ever had a date with a girl, first time I sat alone at a table with a girl, and how surreal that felt. Like wow, just me and her. I'm at the table with a girl and she's looking at me and talking to me and I'm looking at her and trying not to mess up my words, it's what I say to her. The whole room, the whole world, is spinning with joy and just so you know, it's an awkward for me to tell around my wife because that girl became my wife. But I think about that thrill and then I think that doesn't compare to meeting alone with God, a God looking at me, talking to me, me looking at God talking to God, who is the one spinning the world. So can I just pause a moment and ask you the question who else is more important, more significant, more consequential, more glorious than you have to meet with this week? Like, I know you're busy, we're a busy people, but what do you have on your schedule tomorrow. That is more important than a meeting with God At some point in the day. So Jesus says when you pray, meaning so set aside a time. If you're taking notes, let's write that down. Set aside a time when are you going to meet with God during your day? Because we all know that if we don't set a time, we'll get busy doing all kinds of other things and what's most important in our lives will not happen. So set aside a time when you're going to meet with, sit down with, focus on God, and I would encourage you, to the extent possible, to put this on your schedule at the same time every day. So to set aside that time where, okay, at this point in my day, I know I'm going to meet with God. For me, it's a morning routine, so get up, brush my teeth, get some water and get alone with God before anything else. I would personally encourage everyone who can to set aside the first moments of your day for this. It will change the rest of your day. For some of you, that may not be possible or best, for a number of different reasons. So then, what will your time be? When you pray? Set aside a time to go into your room. So here's the second thing to write down Find a place. So where is the place, where's the room where you're going to meet with God? Plan this out. Heather and I have designated places where we meet with God in the morning. Obviously, when I travel, that changes. Your schedule may mean it's this place on this day or that place on that day, but where is the place you're going to be? Set it up. Find a place. I'm going to meet with God at this time in this place and I'm going to shut the door Now. That doesn't mean we literally have to be in an enclosed room with the door shut Early in the morning, before our kids get up. Heather is in our den on the couch every morning, alone with God, and that's the point. Where can you get alone with God, just you and him, and think about why this is so important? There are many reasons. I'll give you two that are clearly behind what Jesus is saying here. One find a place where nothing else can distract you. That's part of the purpose here To get aside from anything and everything else, anyone and everyone else, no matter how good those people or those things may be, so you can focus on you and God. We are bombarded every day with what the world is telling us to do. We need to get alone with God and hear what he is telling us to do. Nobody else Him. I'm going to maybe another angle. We are constantly wondering what others think or say about us. We need to get alone with God and we need to hear what he thinks and says about us. So our identity is not defined by other people or the world around us, but our identity is defined by the one who made us. We all need that. Our minds, our hearts, they run in so many different directions. We have so many different obligations school work, relationships in our homes. So marriage or parenting, friendships outside our homes, people, things. We're surrounded by distractions, particularly on screens, and Jesus is saying here put it all aside to be with God. Go back to the date illustration for a minute. We didn't have phones way back then like we do today, but in the thrill of that moment, let me tell you what I would not be doing. No, no, no. Now, with a beautiful girl in front of me, be foolishness Like. Look at her. I don't. I don't mean to be trite with a date illustration, all the more so when you're looking at God, like put it aside, get off your phone, gaze on God, listen to God, talk to God. We spend an average of five and a half hours a day on this thing. Surely we can set aside for a few minutes to focus on God. We need this. So find a place where nothing can distract you and where no one else can see you. You see this word secret twice. Get alone with God in secret, where only God can see. In secret. You realize what Jesus is saying here. The most important part of your life is the part that no one else sees. Let me say that that's important enough for me to put on the screen here. Say it again the most important parts of your life is the part that nobody else sees. Most important part of your life is not what your family sees, though that is very important. The most important part of your life is not what your friends see, though that is very important. The most important part of your life is not what your classmates or coworkers see, though that is important. The most important part of your life is the part that only God sees. Jesus is giving every single one of us here an invitation to meet with God, just you and him, in secret. So then, what do you do when you get alone in the room with God? Jesus says go in your room, shut the door and pray, pray. You talk with God and you might think well, what do I say and where do I start? And this is why, right after Jesus tells us to do this, he specifically tells us how to pray and what's known as the Lord's Prayer, and we use an acrostic around here that summarizes what Jesus says in the Lord's Prayer to help us remember how to pray P-R-A-Y. So the P stands for praise. Prayer starts by saying pray like this our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Prayer starts with focusing on who God is. So start here. Just get alone, close the door and praise God for who he is. Praise him for his love, his mercy, his justice, his goodness, his grace. Praise God. Praise God specifically for how you see his love and his goodness in your life. Thank him for what he's doing in your life. Think about what he did in your life the day before. Thank him for that. Praise him. Thank him for giving you life, for the breath in your lungs and the beat in your heart, for the good things you have, knowing every good thing comes from him, good things in the world. Just thank him and praise him for good things and don't rush through this. Now you pull up a worship song on your phone and sing to him. We don't just need to sing when we're together, sing when no one else can see you and the good thing is, at least with my singing voice, no one else can hear you. It's win-win. And periodically get on your knees, on your face before God. Don't forget who you're meeting with. It is good for this to be a regular posture in our daily lives. It is good for this to be a regular posture in our daily lives, like we are a prideful people and we need physically alone, with nobody else watching, to be on our faces in a place where we're reminding ourselves and confessing before God. You're God, I'm not, I need you, so don't rush through this. The goal is not just to check off a box. You don't meet with God just to say, okay, what do I need to do? Like, no, you're spending time with me. It's to start there. Praise. Then are Repent. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6, verse 12, for Bray, like us, forgive us our sins, our debts trespasses. To go back to my relationship with my wife, any married couple knows what it's like to have tension when one spouse has done something that's offended the other spouse. At least, I think every married couple has experienced that tension. I guess I'm just confessing. I've experienced that tension when I've said or done something that's not good or helpful for Heather and as long as that's the case, if I ignore that or don't address that or don't apologize for that, it affects my closeness to her. There's a distance that we both feel, but everything changes when that comes to light. We talk through it. I ask for forgiveness. The door is open for intimacy to be restored. We know this in all kinds of human relationships, all the more so in relationship with God. You pause and ask, as you're alone in that room, god, what in my life right now? What in my life Yesterday, since the last time I was here we were together? What in my life is not pleasing to you, has not been pleasing to you? Where have I turned or where am I prone to turn or not trust your ways, over my ways or the ways of this world, to pause and confess that and your need for God's grace and God's forgiveness. If we don't do this, there will be continual distance in our relationship with God. Repentance leads to restoration of intimate relationship with God. So do this continually, daily and all throughout the day as needed, but particularly in this concentrated time alone in the room with God. Praise, repent and then A ask. Jesus says pray like this. Give us this day our daily bread. Ask God for what you need and your desire in your life and on a practical level. I want to encourage you in your meeting with God to ask for things in planned and spontaneous ways. I'm going to write this out so we'll start with spontaneous. So ask God for things in spontaneous ways when you're meeting with God. Just think just what comes to my mind when I think. What do I need or want in my life right now according to God's word? What do others need or want in their lives right now according to God's word? And as different things and people and circumstances come to your mind, trust that God, by his spirit, is leading you to pray in these ways, because our minds can start to go different directions when we're praying. Let's maybe sometimes trust that God is leading them in those different directions. I think about this morning, a particular person and circumstance came to my mind that I haven't thought about in so long. So I just pressed in there for a couple of minutes, just prayed for that person and that circumstance. I'm trusting that God was leading in that. So just stop and think what are things I can pray for in my life and other lives and pray for whatever comes to your mind, and then that's spontaneous and then in planned ways, meaning there's so many things that we want to pray for our lives and other lives around me. I think about praying for Heather and my kids. There's so many things I want to pray for them. I pray for their love for God, their love for others, pray for my kids, their maturity and excelling in school. I want to pray for their future spouses, that the Lord leads them to be married. I pray for any future children, grandchildren. I'm just a long list of things. What for my kids? Now? I think about other family members, think about different friends that I wanna pray for. There's so many different things. I wanna pray for you, for our church. There's so many things in our city I wanna pray for and around the world that I wanna pray for. So for me personally, I have a document I've written out where I've just got Monday and I have specific things that I decide to pray for on Mondays for my family, for different friends, for certain things in the world, for certain things for you as a church, and the same on Tuesday, wednesday and Thursday, and I guess I could pray for all of it every single day, but it feels like maybe I'll just split it up and do a few different days. So that's just an idea that might help you or spur your mind on how you might do this. The point is, god's invited you to ask for things he's actually said you don't have because you don't ask. So ask intentionally, in spontaneous and planned ways, obviously trusting God to answer according to his wisdom, but also realizing that God has actually chosen to involve you in his work, in your life and in other people's lives and in the world, through prayer all throughout. Exodus, for example, we read this look at this Exodus 8.13, it's not the only time we read it, it's one instance. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. What a statement. God did what Moses asked. Moses prayed and God acted. When you pray, god will act According to his word and his wisdom. You think well, I've asked for things and God's not done. Yes, this is where we trust. Again, he is God and we are not. But that doesn't mean he's just ignoring everything we say. No, it's not what the Bible teaches at all. So ask, set aside time to praise, repent, ask, and then back here why yield? Jesus says in Matthew 6.13, pray, lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. God, please lead, guide, direct my life. That's a good prayer to pray. One of the things I often do in my time alone with God in the morning is just to pray through the details of my day as best as I know, knowing things can change. But okay, I know I'm gonna be around these people this time, at this at least, the schedule is so, god, I pray for this person I'll be meeting with, for this meeting I'll be having, for this thing I'll be doing, for this basketball practice. I need patience in whatever it is, so just pray through it and pray for sensitivity to God's spirit at every moment, for opportunities to share the gospel, to build up others, encourage others in Christ, god, help me to love you with all my heart, love others as myself, as I go throughout the details of this day. And then one other thing I'll add, just on a practical level, but a practice that's extremely helpful for me in my time alone with God is journaling. So there's no mention of journaling here. So, just to be clear, I'm going beyond what Jesus is saying. It's just practical help. But when I was in middle school like middle school somebody encouraged me to start journaling and I did. Just writing out prayers to God, reflections on his word, what God is teaching me or doing in my life, and ever since then, personally, I can track the times I've experienced deepest intimacy with God, with times I've been journaling. It's helpful for me. It helps keep my mind focused on God as I'm spending time alone with Him, write out every single thing I pray, but I write out many prayers, reflections on God's word and God's work in my life. Just start most mornings, sit down, write out some prayers of praise and then reflect back on what God did in my life the day before in ways that lead me to praise or repent or ask or yield in different ways and write out different verses I'm reading. Pray according to them. If you've never done something like this, I would encourage you to try it, maybe during these 21 days. Just try it. You don't have to go with a little elaborate system. I'll take a piece of paper and a pen or a device. I do mine. I have a word document that's titled 2024 Journal. So it's super creative and I just write out the date January or whatever, 2024, and I start journaling and then the next day do the same, the next day do the same. So again, jesus' office doesn't say the journal here it's not something you need to do, but if it's helpful, do that. No, and Jesus does say okay, so follow it, set us out of time, find a place and pray, watch this to your father. Oh, this is so good. So this word, this title for God, is stunning in this verse, and here's why. So, across 39 books in the Old Testament leading up to the book of Matthew first two thirds of the Bible Father is used as a title for God 15 times, only 15 times in the entire Old Testament, and none of those references are to praying to God as Father. But when you turn the pages into the New Testament, into the Gospels, you have a whole new picture. And the Gospels alone Matthew, mark, luke and John God is addressed as Father 165 different times and in all of those instances, jesus is using this title for God when he's teaching his disciples who are following him, which means so. This is the gospel, this is the good news. We have all been created by God for relationship with God. We're made to find our life in relationship with God, not apart from him, but with him. The problem is, all of us looks different in each of our lives, have turned aside from God and his ways to ourselves, our own ways. We've all rebelled against God, sinned against him. As a result of our sin, we're separated from him. There is distance between us and God because of our sin, and if we die in this state of separation from God, we'll spend eternity distant from the goodness and the love, the grace, the mercy of God and holy judgment to our sin. But the good news of the Bible, the gospel, the greatest news in the world, is that God has not left us alone in this state, but God has come to us in the person of Jesus, god with us in the flesh. Jesus has lived a life we could not live, a life with no sin, and then, even though he had no sin for which to die, he chose to die on a cross to pay the price for your sin. We must have the sins of anyone who will trust in him. And then the good news keeps getting better, because he didn't stay dead for long. Three days later he rose from the grave. He conquered sin and death so that anyone, anywhere, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done, if you will turn to Jesus from your sin and yourself and trust in him as the savior and Lord of your life, god will forgive you of all your sin and restore you to relationship with him for all of eternity. You're made to enjoy God not as a distant, all powerful being, but as your dad, your father in relationship with him. Which means when we pray we don't just pray to a distant, all powerful being and monotonous recitation of highest phrases. We don't pray Almighty God, feared God among all, god's dreadful creator and ground of all being. No, we come to God as children and say Father, father, like a child who loves to see it be with his or her dad and I know not everybody hearing that knows what it's like to have a good relationship with a father, with a dad. But just picture the best possible relationship between a child and a dad who loves his child, care for his care for his child, serve his child, knows what is best for his child, has the power to do what is best for his child and is always, always, always, always working for the good of his child and realize this is who God is for you. So my favorite quote from JI Packard, his book Knowing God that I would recommend to everyone read he writes what is a Christian? The richest answer, I know, is that a Christian is one who has God as father. You have God as your father. So get alone and pray to your father, who is in secret. So just you and him together. As a son whose earthly father died years ago of a sudden heart attack, I would give just about anything to just be with my dad. I think of my senior year in high school and in time he spent particularly that year as one on one with me, just me and him, preparing for life ahead. This is you and God, one on one with him, and he's really there with you in secret. So when you pray, you're not just talking into the air or the ceiling or the sky. You're talking to with the unseen God and your father who sees. I love this. God sees you. What a reality. The sovereign God of the universe, who's ruling the universe, sees you in that room, alone with him. His eyes are on you and this morning, when I got home, I saw a picture of my father. And this morning, when I got up and got in my place, all with God, the God who's ruling the universe he was hooking at me. He was listening to me. I was pouring out my heart to him, unburdening all things, kinds of things that were heavy on my heart, and he was listening and he was talking to me, and not just me. That's the point for any one of us. Through Jesus, he's made this possible for you and you get along with him. He sees you, he sees all of who you are. He sees you. He knows you better than you know yourself, and he sees all that's going on in your life, all the things that are heavy on your heart. He sees your struggles, he sees your fears, he sees your worries, he sees your cares, he sees your questions. He sees your joys, he sees your tears. The eye of God is on you. What a thought. He sees you and your father, who sees you in secret, will reward you. Wow, that's a promise that's the language here Will Set us out of time. Find a place, pray to your father in secret and God, your father, who sees you, will reward you. You realize what this is saying. There is reward, a treasure, waiting for you every day, in a room alone with God. He's just waiting for you. Don't, don't leave it there. I take it, enjoy it, do it tomorrow, and there's new reward the next day. Just waiting More reward the next day and the next day. I can testify to it time and time again when I'm going through this or that in my life that's hard or heavy and, to be honest, when I just confess there's sometimes like I I don't even want to spend this time right now, I can get along with God and even in my lack of desire, he meets me with his love and he says here's your reward for you Speaks my heart, listens to my cries and experiences reward and I'm just sharing my own room, my life. But it's not just me, this is all of us, this is you. Reward is waiting for you with God, with God. So two, two other things I want to mention before we close and then go into this next 21 days. So one, when we talk with God. I've mentioned the different points. We also listen to God. This is not like one way communication. He speaks to us by his spirit, through his word, and our church has a Bible reading plan that we walk through together, and I just want to encourage you unless you have some other plan that you're walking through and you don't want to change, that's fine, but if that's not the case, I want to invite you to follow along, maybe if you have something else like, at least consider. Here's why this is Heather and I started doing together many years ago, just reading through the same Bible reading plan, and it's not necessarily that we sit down and read it together. We're both in the same place in the morning in God's word, the same place in God's word, in such a way that at different points in the day, we can encourage each other with what we both read. Did you see this? Wasn't that encouraging? In this way, and we now involve our kids, the ones who are able to read, in the same ways. We can talk about it in family worship at night, and it's so good to share life with others who are hearing the same things from God, which is part of why we do this as a church family. So you can go to McLeanBuyorg slash 21 days, you can download the Bible reading plan we use there and there's also a devotional that goes along with it, called For the Love of God. I highly recommend that. It's just a short devotional it's two chapters a day, so it's manageable for sure. And again, not just to check off a box but to listen to God. I would highly encourage you to join with the church family in doing that. And then one other resource along those lines many of you know there's a podcast called Pray the Words that I do every day. It's a short five minutes and it takes one of the verses from our Bible reading and leads us to pray according to it. So I hope in a way that's a helpful tool for you and your time alone with God, or maybe when you're getting ready in the morning or during your commute or you're driving with your parents or your kids or friends going from this to that. So just one potential way to help fuel this time alone with God and to do it together through that Bible reading plan and pray the words. Second, if you jump down and we're just going to hit this really quick if you jump down to Matthew 6, 16, you hear Jesus say these words and when you fast and we don't have time to talk in depth through fasting today, but notice the language is the same when you fast, just like and when you pray. So Jesus is saying find a time to fast, and real quick. We use this acrostic to help us remember what it means to fast. F focus on God. Meaning the purpose of fasting is not just to get physically healthy All kinds of nutrition plans that I call for some type of fasting and that may be a great side effect, but that's not the purpose here. The purpose is to focus on God, and definitely not to do this to be seen by others as super spiritual, but to focus on God in a particular way by abstaining from food. So set aside food for a meal or a day, or multiple days and with rare exceptions, which there are certainly, I want to ignore those, but most people can do this. May not be easy, but most people can do this Abstain from food and, instead of eating for that meal or that day or those days, substitute the time you would eat with prayer in God's word. So it's not just why I didn't eat so I fasted or I missed breakfast. I'm going to count that as a fast, kind of misses the point. Instead of eating, you feast on extra time alone with God and his word. So set aside the time you would be eating to spend extra time alone with God, subtitute time with prayer and God's word, and then, in the process, tea, taste and see that God is good. The God is better than even the most basic things we need and want, like food, in this world. So we got a lot of resources for fasting in that 21 days page. I want to encourage you to seek them out, but think through when, over the next 21 days, you will fast, which leads right into the simple, personal, practical way I want us to close our time in God's word. Today we're going to do two things together. So first, we've thought about being with God in quiet, like alone with God in quiet, and I just think it would make sense for us, having thought about this in God's word, to be with God in quiet for a few minutes, and obviously, in rooms like we're in right now, we're not alone with God. It's just part of the point of what we've seen today. Remember going to your room, close the door where nobody else can see or distract you. But that's not what Sundays is the church are designed to be. But on this Sunday, like in this moment, I'd love for us to take a few quiet moments in the places where we're sitting and to pray Like P-R-A-Y. And this may be you just praying silently, or maybe you write out a prayer, something you have to write on, or pull out a device, but not for the purpose of doing anything else, but pull up a note so you can write out a prayer, and I just want to invite each of us for the next few minutes, to spend a few quiet moments. Very rarely do we sit in silence, and I think it'd be really valuable for us to sit together in silence and just spend time in each of the places where we're sitting, praising God, repenting of sin, asking Him for things, just asking for things in your life and others' lives, yielding our lives to Him. And if you've never placed your faith in Jesus and begun a relationship with God as your Father, I want to invite you. You can do that right now. I pray to Him, tell God you want to know Him as your Father. Confess your need for His forgiveness of your sins Bank of Jesus for dying on the cross for your sins. You can begin a relationship with God right now. You don't have to go do a bunch of things, just receive His love for you, enter into a relationship with Him. We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of Radical with David Platt.