WEBVTT 00:00:00.479 --> 00:00:05.120 All right, we're in pray like this, a new sermon series, four weeks. 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:09.519 We're gonna be spending in the Lord's Prayer, Matthew chapter six. 00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:13.759 If you have a Bible or an app, we're gonna be working through this verse by verse. 00:00:13.919 --> 00:00:17.519 So make sure that you get there, turn there, open there. 00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:25.280 We're looking at this together, taking a break from the book of Acts for just a few weeks. 00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:30.800 Here's what I want us to kind of think through as we're getting ready to dive into this. 00:00:31.199 --> 00:00:50.000 Every single good gift that God has given to us as his people, we have found a way to twist it and pervert it into something entirely different than its intended purposes. 00:00:50.719 --> 00:00:51.200 Right? 00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:53.520 Food, I love food. 00:00:53.759 --> 00:01:02.719 Food that's meant to nourish our body, that's meant to be this communal attraction, to gather relationship around, right? 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:03.439 What have we done? 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:06.079 We've turned it into gluttony. 00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:15.920 We've turned it into some type of means to actually satisfy our emotional stress and burdens that we carry. 00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:20.239 We use it to medicate and it harms us. 00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:28.159 Some of us look at, if we look at rest, rest that's meant to restore us, rest that's meant to comfort us. 00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:28.879 What does it do? 00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:43.840 It becomes this excuse for laziness or slothfulness, or we reject it outright and we just live a life convinced that it's how productive we are that actually gives us worth and value in this world. 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:46.159 What about prayer? 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:48.159 The good gift of prayer. 00:01:48.400 --> 00:02:00.239 One of the most loving gifts that God has ever given his children: intimacy with him, comfort in weakness, peace in the middle of uncertainty. 00:02:01.439 --> 00:02:12.879 Prayer, this gift, it's not safe from this human heart propensity either to take the good gifts of God and to pervert them. 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:15.439 What do we do with prayer? 00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:22.719 Well, we take it and we turn it into another stage to perform on. 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:33.599 Or we take it and we turn it into another lever that we try to pull to actually get God to move in our life in the way that we want him to. 00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:40.479 Jesus observed this heart propensity happening even in his own day of time. 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:45.599 And he addresses it directly in Matthew 5 and 6. 00:02:45.919 --> 00:02:53.759 So, in this section of Matthew's gospel, these passages are really Jesus' best known teachings. 00:02:53.919 --> 00:03:06.960 We call them the Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount containing the Beatitudes, where he lays out what life lived out in his kingdom actually looks like for his people. 00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:19.360 Now he just spent all of chapter five showing that real righteousness, real holiness starts in the heart of man, not just in our outward behavior. 00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:34.319 And now, here in chapter six, he turns to these three spiritual practices that every devout Jew would have called probably the safest, most obviously righteous ground that they could stand on. 00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:40.719 These acts of piety, of giving, prayer, and fasting. 00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:45.120 We're going to focus on prayer in this series. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:04:02.960 And here's the thing: even here, in these three spiritual practices, what we discover is that the heart can hollow them out, can empty them of their substance and worth. 00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:06.319 It can bring them to nothing. 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:20.560 Here's something that we have to state before we dive into this because our temptation in this text is to read it as a new method or through the lens of pragmatism. 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:24.639 We could read this of, hey, you don't pray very well. 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:26.480 Here's how you should pray. 00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:29.920 And if you pray like this, you'll fix your prayer life. 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:40.879 Jesus isn't offering us a new methodology of how to pray, as much as he's showing us what's wrong with our heart when we do pray. 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:47.199 And so it's not a pragmatic method that can fix what's wrong with our prayer life. 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:52.160 It has to be something deeper, deeper in the very heart and soul of man. 00:04:52.240 --> 00:05:00.000 So let's look at exactly how Jesus first diagnoses the problem that we have and what he offers in its place. 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:03.759 Matthew chapter 6, starting in verse 5. 00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:06.240 In verse 5 through 6, here's what we see. 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:09.600 Jesus addresses the prayer that performs for man. 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:14.000 Jesus addresses the prayer that performs for man. 00:05:14.319 --> 00:05:16.240 Jesus says this in verse 5. 00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:22.160 When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:32.560 Now, that word hypocrite would hit very differently in the ears of a first century Jew than it would for us today. 00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:36.800 When we hear the word hypocrite, we hear fake. 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:38.079 Right? 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:44.639 When they heard the word hypocrite, they heard actor, performance. 00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:52.480 You see, the surrounding area in Jesus' day had these beautiful, magnificent performance theaters. 00:05:52.639 --> 00:06:10.319 There was one just a few miles from Jesus' own hometown, and a hypocrite was a performer on that stage, someone speaking behind a mask, playing a part that was written for someone else, just a rehearser for applause. 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:18.959 And when Jesus calls the person praying on the street corner a hypocrite, he's not just saying that the man is fake or lying. 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:26.079 What he's saying is that the man has walked onto a stage to perform. 00:06:27.519 --> 00:06:29.920 And notice what kind of stage it is. 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:38.000 You see, these weren't people who were making excuses to pray in public. 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:47.759 To see someone pray publicly in that day and time and in that context would not have been awkward or out of the normal whatsoever. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:07:00.720 The temple would make these public calls to pray several times a day, and it was very normal for Jews in that context to stop wherever they were and to offer these prayers to the Lord. 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:13.600 The difference here is the individual who makes sure they're at the right intersection when that prayer call comes. 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:32.160 They're at the right busiest place where the most people ought to be, and they time it so that they get there to be seen and noticed by the crowds around them that when it is time to pray, they will be noticed the most. 00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:39.759 You see, this wasn't spontaneous devotion that you would think is weird and out of place. 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:47.199 It was stage devotion, using this real religious custom as its backdrop. 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:53.439 And so the hypocrite did not need to fake sincerity. 00:07:54.160 --> 00:08:01.360 He just needed to be standing in the right intersection at the right time of day to be noticed the most. 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:06.399 So here's what we have to realize in what Jesus is saying. 00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:12.319 Because we can be tempted to think differently, just reading it on its surface. 00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:18.720 We can be tempted to believe that the failure is in being seen while you pray. 00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:24.399 That's not the failure, it's praying in order to be seen. 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:32.480 The failure is not being seen when you pray, the failure is praying in order to be seen by others. 00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:36.559 Jesus himself, he prayed in front of his disciples very regularly. 00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:39.039 He prayed publicly very regularly. 00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:44.320 This was normative for him in his public ministry to pray publicly. 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:52.480 The problem was never the audience that was around Jesus when he lifted his voice to the Father. 00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:56.159 It was who the prayer was actually for. 00:08:57.279 --> 00:09:00.480 Is it to be noticed and to be seen? 00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:12.159 And at the end of verse 5, Jesus says that those who pursue the applause and praise of man, they've actually already gotten what they were truly searching for. 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:19.919 Because what they truly were searching for was not reflected in the words of which they were praying publicly on that street corner. 00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:25.919 No, what they really were searching for was the applause and affection and adoration of man. 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:31.919 Jesus says, They, they have received their reward in full. 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:34.879 What you wanted, you got. 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:41.279 You see, that reward language, it's contractual in nature. 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:49.039 It communicates the wages of a laborer who has collected his shifts finished pay. 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:54.559 Jesus is saying, that transaction, it's closed. 00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:00.879 Don't expect anything from the Father because you've already gotten everything you've wanted anyway. 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:04.879 There's nothing to collect from him. 00:10:05.679 --> 00:10:09.919 Because there was nothing ever offered to him in the first place. 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:15.519 And so the applause and attention of man, that was the payment for the performer. 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:18.720 And the payment had already been received. 00:10:19.759 --> 00:10:23.279 So against that reality, Jesus says this. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:33.840 But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. 00:10:34.639 --> 00:10:36.960 Now, let me say this. 00:10:38.159 --> 00:10:45.919 He's not handing you a new methodology to be able to put into practical use of your prayer life. 00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:49.279 It's not the heart of what's being addressed here. 00:10:49.919 --> 00:10:59.759 Prayer does not always have to be private, but it must always be brought before the Father alone. 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:15.440 Whether anyone else is in the room or not, is your prayer brought before Him alone, or is your prayer brought before the spectators whom you desire to get applause and adoration from? 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.200 That's what Jesus is trying to address here. 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:28.879 Next, Jesus addresses the prayer that pressures God in verses seven through eight. 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:31.919 So we have the performer in five and six. 00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:36.879 We have the one who persuades or pressures in verses seven through eight. 00:11:37.039 --> 00:11:43.519 If the first temptation is to perform for man, for man, the the second is to pressure God. 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:45.840 Jesus says this in verse seven. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.080 And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:54.799 For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 00:11:55.919 --> 00:12:03.600 Now, the original Greek behind the word empty phrases, it's a strange one. 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:14.320 It sounds eerily close to what it actually means, this kind of babbling or stammering of tongue is what Jesus is inferring to. 00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:21.039 Here's where I think this helps us bring some like concrete picture to what he might be talking about. 00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:27.840 If you're familiar with biblical stories, you might be familiar with the prophets of Baal. 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:32.080 And what did they do when met with Elijah? 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:38.799 They said, Well, we'll be able to call our God to bring fire upon this altar. 00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:40.080 Look at what we'll do. 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:59.039 And they spent the day and night cutting themselves, crying out, screaming, dancing, anything that they could do to be noticed by their false God named Baal, that they could actually persuade him to move on their behalf. 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:05.600 That's kind of the picture that we need to put forward as we hear what Jesus is addressing in this moment. 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:23.600 Prayer that's treated like some magical incantation, where the right combination of words and postures that are said long enough or loud enough or eloquently enough will finally cause God to move in that moment. 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:39.440 Now, we don't cut ourselves on altars, but I think if we really stopped and thought about it, we could relate to the desire that would drive such horrendous action. 00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:42.799 We just want to be noticed. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:46.480 We want God to pay attention. 00:13:47.200 --> 00:14:02.000 It's the anxious prayer, the fear-filled prayer that we've wordsmithed properly, that we've inserted the right biblical verses that we could bring to memory, that we've rehearsed in our mind time after time. 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:02.879 And what do we do? 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:18.960 We offer it like this court case presented before this critical cosmic judge that if we just make the right arguments or say this in the right way, he'll actually be pressured and persuaded to move. 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:28.240 You see, underneath that, the the babbler, the one who tries to persuade. 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:34.639 It's the exact same fear that's driving the man on the street corner. 00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:38.159 It's just aimed at a different audience. 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:46.960 Because both of them, the performer and the persuader, are just trying to be noticed. 00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:49.600 They're just trying to be noticed. 00:14:49.679 --> 00:14:53.759 One's trying to be noticed by man, the other's trying to be noticed by God. 00:14:54.559 --> 00:15:01.440 Both are convinced that being noticed has to be achieved and earned. 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:14.399 And Jesus does something wonderful in this passage because he cuts right through that lie with one single line. 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:15.840 He says this. 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:27.440 Think about what he's just put before us. 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:32.480 We think that we have to be noticed. 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:36.480 And we do anything we can to get that attention. 00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:40.559 Jesus says, You're known. 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:43.600 You're known. 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:55.600 Before you even ask, before you open your mouth, before you try some lofty prayer to get your father's attention, you're known. 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:05.679 You see, the father isn't ignorant of your need, of your state, of your frame, so he doesn't need to be informed by you. 00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:10.879 He isn't reluctant to move on your behalf for your ultimate good. 00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:14.000 He doesn't need to be persuaded by you. 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:19.679 Prayer was never the technique that gets God's attention. 00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:25.440 It's the relationship in which you and I already have it. 00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:36.159 And that's restful, comforting, peaceful to the soul of his children. 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:42.240 I love the way the reformer John Calvin, who was writing on this very first, puts it. 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:49.039 He says, we don't pray to inform God of what he doesn't already know or to talk him into doing his duty. 00:16:49.200 --> 00:17:07.680 No, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in mediating on his promises, meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom. 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.039 So prayer was never for God's attention grabbing. 00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:15.920 Prayer was for your rest. 00:17:19.519 --> 00:17:23.680 Third, in this passage, Jesus gives us a prayer that brings our hearts home. 00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:25.440 Verses 9 through 10. 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:31.839 Jesus brings us, gives us a prayer to bring our hearts home. 00:17:33.519 --> 00:17:37.759 That's what makes these words that Jesus offers to us next so striking. 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:44.640 And if we hold them into comparison of the heart postures he's addressing, he says this. 00:17:44.799 --> 00:17:51.599 He says, Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:56.079 Now notice that first word before we dive too deep past it. 00:17:56.799 --> 00:18:08.559 Jesus doesn't say, my father, as if this were some private transaction that we're trying to make in the loneliness of some closed door closet. 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.839 No, it's our Father. 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:17.519 That language is familial, communal in its very nature. 00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:23.519 We see Jesus use this same language to address God in his prayers. 00:18:23.680 --> 00:18:35.200 And now, here standing before his disciples, he's offering it to them as theirs to use because in him the Father is theirs also. 00:18:37.119 --> 00:18:41.440 I love how this private prayer is communal in nature. 00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:50.559 You can be the only person in the room and still be praying with others around you. 00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:57.200 Because that hour carries others in the room with you. 00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:01.839 It is a part of our identity in the family of God. 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:03.039 It is our Father. 00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:10.160 This is why in our scripture reading, we wanted us to collectively and corporately say this prayer together. 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:12.160 Our Father. 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:17.680 Next, he says, hallowed be your name. 00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:24.160 Treasured, set apart, honored above every other name. 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:30.079 Here's what's awesome about this is it's the exact opposite of hollow. 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:37.279 You see, our hearts try to hollow out this gift of prayer that God has given us. 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:46.160 And here Jesus says, Let me add weight and substance and meaning to the words you're saying. 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:50.240 And it's found in the very name of God. 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:52.640 Hallowed. 00:19:53.759 --> 00:20:14.240 The very hearts Jesus has just described as capable of hollowing prayer out from the inside, praying to be seen, praying to be heard, are invited instead to hallow, to hold sacred the name of the Father who already knows them before they've ever even said a single word to try and prove it. 00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:23.519 So to start with the heavy holiness of God, it gives real substance to a prayer that we're tempted to empty out. 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:31.359 And then Jesus keeps going, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:37.920 Read those two words as you consider both the performer and the persuader. 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:40.319 Everything that we've just talked through. 00:20:40.559 --> 00:20:47.599 And here's what we discover that they actually completely reverse the sinful pursuits of both of them. 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:52.079 You see, the man on the street corner, he was building a kingdom. 00:20:52.559 --> 00:21:04.480 It was small and pathetic, made of the applause and adoration of man, but it was still an attempt in the sinful human heart to strive and build a kingdom for himself. 00:21:05.839 --> 00:21:09.359 The man who was heaping up words, what was he trying to do? 00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:11.200 He was trying to force a will. 00:21:24.559 --> 00:21:30.480 So both of these men were praying, my kingdom come, my will be done. 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:32.240 And Jesus says, No. 00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:34.960 That's not going to give your heart rest. 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:42.640 That's going to magnify the anxiousness and the fear and the insecurity. 00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:54.480 You see, both were praying this false prayer, just wearing the facade of spiritual practices and piety while they did it. 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:59.359 So Jesus hands his disciples a prayer that surrenders both of those pursuits. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:03.440 Not my reputation, but your name. 00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:13.839 Not my agenda, but your will, done as completely on earth in this messy, ordinary life as it already is in heaven. 00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:39.759 And so in Jesus' admonition of these two false prayers, one reaching for man's eyes, the other reaching for God's ear, he offers us one true prayer that stops reaching altogether and simply comes to a Father whose kingdom and will were always eternally better than the ones that we were trying to build and secure for ourselves. 00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:46.319 You see, true prayer comes from being known, not in trying to be seen or heard. 00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:52.079 True prayer comes from being known, not in trying to be seen or heard. 00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:56.160 Jesus didn't just diagnose two bad prayer habits and move on. 00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:05.680 He showed us that the street corner performance and the pagan babbling are actually the same disease within the heart of man. 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:10.640 One reaches for man's eyes, the other reaches for God's ear. 00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:22.880 Both are convinced that being noticed is something to be earned and achieved in this life, manufactured by what we can do rather than something that's already ours in Jesus. 00:23:23.599 --> 00:23:27.920 That's the trap you and I fall in time and time again. 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:35.680 We keep trying to be heard or seen by a Father who already knows us completely. 00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:51.279 And so every fear that drives you and I to perform, that our devotion isn't enough, that our words are insufficient, that God's attention has to be captured before it can be counted on, gets answered before it's ever even asked. 00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:53.839 Look at verse 8 again with me. 00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:58.880 Your father knows what you need before you ask him. 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:07.039 Not eventually, after you've informed him enough of everything he doesn't quite yet know. 00:24:08.319 --> 00:24:18.079 Not once he's convinced, after you've put forward such a persuasive argument that he can't help but to agree with you, before you ever even ask. 00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:23.599 This is why Jesus can hand his disciples a prayer that starts with rest instead of striving. 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:26.720 Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:34.079 It's not the opening line of some negotiation that we have with this critical judge who stands in the cosmos against us. 00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:54.400 No, it is the conversation of a settled heart, of a child who's already belonging to the family of God, praying to a Father whose name is already worth everything, whose kingdom is already better than the one that we would strive to build for ourselves, whose will is eternally good for us. 00:24:56.160 --> 00:25:12.400 So if true prayer comes from being known, then every other way that we've learned to approach God, however sincere, however devout it looks from the outside, is still trying to solve a problem that was never actually there. 00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:18.799 We are trying our hardest to be noticed instead of resting and being known. 00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:22.640 We don't have to be seen. 00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:28.880 We don't have to be heard because we already are in Christ. 00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:31.359 So here's the problem. 00:25:31.519 --> 00:25:35.839 We fear being known, so we strive to be noticed. 00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:38.480 We fear being known, so we strive to be noticed. 00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:42.160 There's a consequence to being known. 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:49.119 Somewhere along the way, most of us we've learned that being known was risky. 00:25:49.359 --> 00:26:01.920 If they really knew who I was, if they really knew what went on in my mind and heart, if they actually knew the person I was when no one else was around, that risk is something that I'm just not willing to take. 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:12.000 And so instead of being vulnerable, we perform and we manage being noticed rather than ever actually being known with inside a community of others. 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:13.920 It's too risky. 00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:20.559 Because being known means being seen not just at your best, but at your worst. 00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:24.240 So we found a very safer trade to make. 00:26:24.640 --> 00:26:29.119 If we can't be fully known, we can at least be noticed. 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.720 Notice for the right answer in Bible study, man, look how good he knows the word. 00:26:35.759 --> 00:26:38.880 Notice for the strong prayer and mission group. 00:26:39.359 --> 00:26:44.240 Notice for holding it together when everyone else's life around you is falling apart. 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:46.960 Man, you've worked hard to be noticed. 00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:54.640 You see, noticed is manageable because you control what gets shown, and known is not. 00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:02.319 But even though we may be noticed, the fear never actually goes away. 00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:13.200 It just lies dormant for a while until the next audience, the next chance to prove ourselves, the next chance to perform comes back around. 00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:19.039 You see, we were made for a Father who already knows every hidden thing in us. 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.799 And he delights in us anyway. 00:27:24.559 --> 00:27:26.880 He loves you anyway. 00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:35.359 He will never leave you because of who you are, because he chased you down just as you are. 00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:42.880 You see, we settle for an audience that we have to keep convincing. 00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:47.599 Some of us we do this by striving to be noticed by man through being seen. 00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:49.359 We want to be noticed by man. 00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:56.640 Here's the crazy thing: street corner prayers are not just first century issues. 00:27:57.279 --> 00:27:59.359 You have your own street corner. 00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:01.119 I have my own street corner. 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:03.519 Let me just get the obvious one in the room. 00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:06.319 Social media is our street corner. 00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:07.119 Right? 00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:10.880 When you post the picture of, man, look how good God is in my life. 00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:12.720 Look how good God's been in my life. 00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:15.039 And you got this picture where everything's awesome. 00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:21.359 You've set it up to where your kids aren't losing their minds and everything looks perfect, and you're just, look how good God. 00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:23.279 You're not trying to brag on God. 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:25.839 You're hoping other people see you. 00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:28.400 You want to be seen. 00:28:28.799 --> 00:28:31.599 Or what about the spent the time in the Word this morning? 00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:38.720 It's like this little coffee and Bible, and and and you know, you got, and and you spent 30 seconds in the Word. 00:28:38.799 --> 00:28:46.880 You spent more time posting it and checking to see who's liked it and commented on it than you actually spent being intimate with your father. 00:28:47.119 --> 00:28:49.359 You think you don't have a street corner? 00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:52.880 Yes, you do. 00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:55.599 We love being seen. 00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:04.640 Some of us, we we can't even share a hard thing in mission group, like a struggle or a sin. 00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:11.039 Without somehow trying to prove that we're we're handling it well and we're fighting valiantly against it. 00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:16.400 It's like, hey, you know, we I'm kind of going through this thing, but but I'm standing strong, and it's like, here's what you did. 00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:26.079 You you just turned what was supposed to be a vulnerable moment for someone to know you into another performance where they see you for how you want to be portrayed. 00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:39.920 We build this reputation amongst others as the steady one, the reliable one, the prayer warrior of the friend group, the one people call when they need someone with real faith and real wisdom. 00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:59.359 And somewhere along the way we stop asking whether we actually want intimacy with God, whether we truly want to be known by the Father, realize how we're known by the Father, or do we just want everyone else in the room to be convinced that we're close to him? 00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:02.880 We have our own street corner. 00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:12.480 Others of us, we strive to be noticed by God through being heard. 00:30:13.119 --> 00:30:16.480 For others of us, the audience might not be man, it might be God Himself. 00:30:16.559 --> 00:30:21.599 And that's what makes this so deceptive to the human heart. 00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:29.839 We treat prayer like this court case that has to be welled argued before God will actually ever move on our behalf. 00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:32.400 We strive to rehearse the right words, right? 00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:50.720 Bring up the Bible verses that we've remembered and can recount in this moment of what we can invoke, the tone of desperation that we have in our voice, as if the previous ten times that we've asked God weren't quite convincing enough yet. 00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:53.680 And so, what do we measure our prayer life by? 00:30:54.240 --> 00:31:12.559 By volume, by minutes logged in some chart that we keep within us, by chapters read, prayers prayed, assuming that a father who truly loves us would obviously respond to more effort with more attention. 00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:21.279 And so we keep this mental ledger of how faithfully we've shown up to prayer, how faithfully we've shown up to morning devotion. 00:31:21.599 --> 00:31:30.079 And when the answer that we want doesn't come, we go looking for what must have gone wrong in the asking. 00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:36.400 Rather than resting in a father who was never keeping score on us in the first place. 00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:41.920 You see, the beauty of the simplicity of the Lord's Prayer is captured in the statement. 00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:54.400 That means your prayer's effectiveness isn't measured by its length or by its depth. 00:31:54.799 --> 00:32:04.000 Your prayer's effective effectiveness is simply a settled confidence in the Father who knows you. 00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:10.799 So whether the audience is the other people or God Himself, the result's the same. 00:32:11.279 --> 00:32:17.119 I think philosopher and Pastor Dallas Willard captures it very well. 00:32:17.279 --> 00:32:20.799 He says, here's the result of the performer and the persuader. 00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:25.119 The ego swells and the soul shrivels. 00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:31.920 It's kind of like Jesus said, You got what you wanted. 00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:38.160 And your soul is just shriveling away in the process. 00:32:40.960 --> 00:32:48.559 But forsaken and silenced, Jesus' shame makes way for us to be known. 00:32:51.279 --> 00:32:55.279 Forsaken and silenced, Jesus' shame makes way for us to be known. 00:32:55.519 --> 00:33:01.599 Here's where the gospel meets both, the performer and the persuader, head on. 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:12.240 It's not just this general thing, but exactly in the two forms that yours and mine striving take shape. 00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:16.160 Jesus never once performed for a human audience. 00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:20.319 Never once did he try to be noticed by man. 00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:32.160 In fact, Isaiah actually saw this centuries earlier, before Jesus' public ministry, he declared about him in Isaiah 53, the suffering servant. 00:33:32.400 --> 00:33:41.119 He says this, for the he grew up before him, like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. 00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:47.920 He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 00:33:48.480 --> 00:34:00.240 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hid his their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. 00:34:01.599 --> 00:34:19.599 The one man who never staged a moment in his life, the one man who never sought anyone's approval was in the end completely unseen and unwanted by the very people that he came to save. 00:34:20.719 --> 00:34:30.320 You see, Jesus took yours and my entire craving to be noticed and he carried it into the tomb with him. 00:34:32.960 --> 00:34:35.679 And Jesus never had to babble to be heard. 00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:51.679 Before he had performed a single miracle, before he had anything to boast of achievement, the Father spoke audibly over his son at his baptism in Matthew 3, 17. 00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:57.679 He says, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. 00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:10.079 Think about the public ministry Jesus worked from because of the affection of the Father, because he knew he was known. 00:35:11.599 --> 00:35:22.000 Rather than all of Jesus' ministry being something to earn that affection and knowledge and intimacy by how good he did. 00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:26.719 That's a completely different scenario. 00:35:29.199 --> 00:35:36.880 There was no striving to earn, no case to be made, to be persuaded, just a father delighting in his son. 00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:38.719 This is my beloved son. 00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:54.800 But on the cross, that same son, the one who never had to earn his father's ear, cried out in what seemed to be complete silence and darkness. 00:35:55.280 --> 00:36:05.360 If ever Jesus' voice fell on a deaf ear, it was at Calvary when he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:10.559 You see, he took our deepest fear. 00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:20.239 Our deepest fear that our best performance in this life would still be met with nothing from God. 00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:26.800 And he bored in himself all the way to the end. 00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:36.079 So forsaken and silenced, Jesus' shame makes way for you and for me to be known. 00:36:36.400 --> 00:36:44.000 He didn't just show us a better way to pray, and we're missing all of what Jesus is trying to show us if that's how we look at this passage. 00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:47.199 It's not just a better way to pray. 00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:57.519 No, Christ Himself secured once and for all the very thing that our performing and our persuading was always chasing after. 00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:04.400 Because Jesus was truly unseen, you and I were free to stop performing. 00:37:05.760 --> 00:37:07.840 To try and be noticed. 00:37:09.119 --> 00:37:16.960 And because he was truly unheard, we're free to stop pressuring a father who was never deaf to the cry of his children to begin with. 00:37:18.400 --> 00:37:25.760 So what was closed to Christ on the cross is now permanently open to us who are in him. 00:37:26.559 --> 00:37:29.280 So here's my prayer for us as we wrap this up. 00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:36.960 My prayer is that we would pray seeking nothing but a perfect Father who knows us. 00:37:38.239 --> 00:37:42.880 That we would pray seeking nothing but a perfect Father who knows us. 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:51.760 This is what changes when we actually believe that we're known and not living a life of trying to be noticed. 00:37:53.519 --> 00:37:58.639 We stop rehearsing our prayers and instead we rest in them. 00:37:59.679 --> 00:38:09.039 Because a father who knows our person and our need isn't waiting to be impressed or persuaded before he acts or moves on our behalf. 00:38:09.199 --> 00:38:14.559 No, he already delights to hear us and already moves to answer us. 00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:21.199 We pray seeking nothing but a perfect father who knows us. 00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:35.679 Not a stage to perform on, not a case to win through our persuasive methods, just a father already near, already listening, already ours. 00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:43.760 Because true prayer comes from being known, not in trying to be seen or to be heard. 00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:44.559 Amen.