SPEAKER_00: Look together at Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have a Bible, I would encourage you to open to that passage as we consider it together this morning.
SPEAKER_00: In his book, Prayer, The Great Adventure, Pastor David Jeremiah says that prayer took on a new meaning for him when he was diagnosed with cancer.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote in his book, and I quote, I discovered a dimension to prayer that I had never known before.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus enrolled me in his intensive course on prayer, and I became an eager learner.
SPEAKER_00: And what lesson struck home with most force?
SPEAKER_00: I discovered something that had been true all along, even though I had not thought much about it.
SPEAKER_00: I discovered I was helpless without God.
SPEAKER_00: And that was the beginning of the adventure for me.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is one of those spiritual disciplines that I think most everyone understands is part of faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of walking and living the life of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We know that it's expected.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have a sense of that, I think, that Christ expects us to pray.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we are to communicate with our God in that way.
SPEAKER_00: He's not here present physically with us to talk with, person to person.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere inside of us, I think most of us know that prayer, prayer can be a wonderful adventure with God.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe we don't do it very much.
SPEAKER_00: Our excuses can go on and on.
SPEAKER_00: I've used some of these excuses, perhaps you have too.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have enough time.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's the today I can't I can't take the time I normally have because I've got something else going on.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to say.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: It feels weird.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want anyone to hear me.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't answer me the way I want, anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Have you used any of those excuses?
SPEAKER_00: If you are, you're just normal.
SPEAKER_00: At one time or another, I think most of us have used at least one of those excuses.
SPEAKER_00: I'm also certain that most of us know that those excuses don't go very far with God.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we're made to feel even more guilty when we hear those stories of super spiritual Christians that get up at four in the morning and pray for four hours before they start their day.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of those?
SPEAKER_00: Boy, they make me feel very, very insufficient.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is, though, that any Christian can pray.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is that all Christians should pray.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is that many do not know how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know how to pray, don't feel guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Don't take yourself down a guilty trip of making yourself feel less and less of a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Don't feel guilty if you don't know how to pray, but don't stay there either.
SPEAKER_00: Learn how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Even the original 12 disciples didn't know how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Back in Luke's gospel in Luke chapter 11 in the parallel account to Matthew's gospel, we see Jesus' teaching on the subject of prayer came in response to a question from the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you teach us how to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Like John the Baptist disciples taught his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: You and I should bear no guilt when we realize that we don't know how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: However, we should not remain there.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let anything keep you in that place.
SPEAKER_00: Learn from Jesus how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: What often happens, I think, is that we figure that we don't know how to pray, and so we don't.
SPEAKER_00: We're content to remain ignorant.
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps our discomfort with prayer keeps us from doing it.
SPEAKER_00: It feels awkward or in some sense unnatural.
SPEAKER_00: It's weird talking to someone we can't see.
SPEAKER_00: So the result is that we don't try.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the guys in here will have an understanding of that first time that you wanted to ask a girl out on a date.
SPEAKER_00: It's weird.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't know how.
SPEAKER_00: Feels awkward.
SPEAKER_00: It feels weird, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: We have those same feelings with prayer, but the problem with that kind of thinking is that a portion of prayer is learned by simply doing.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the young bird kicked out of its nest by its parent.
SPEAKER_00: You can only be taught so much, and the rest comes by practical learning, by being forced to fly.
SPEAKER_00: Much in prayer is learned by doing.
SPEAKER_00: There are, however, a few things that we can learn from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There are some things about prayer, some truths that can be taught.
SPEAKER_00: In our study in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, we've come to a section in which Jesus instructs us in issues of living out our faith, of practical righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's expected that God's children will be like him.
SPEAKER_00: That as we live out our faith, we will do so much like Jesus lived.
SPEAKER_00: Three of the most important and most common faith issues of the first century were giving to the needy, praying, and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Three issues that Jesus addresses in Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus tells us and teaches us that those religious, faith-filled actions are not so much about what you do, not so much about how you live it out, but what the heart attitude is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says the proper way to give, to fast, and to pray is with the proper attitude.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, basically, it's you need to do that without getting any attention for it.
SPEAKER_00: If you can give to the needy, if you can pray, and if you can fast in secret without anyone knowing, then you are more likely to have the right heart attitude.
SPEAKER_00: However, if you have a need for others to see and know what you're doing in your faith, then you're more like the Pharisees than the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: And last time we looked at the first illustration in verses 1 through 4 of Matthew chapter 6, that is giving.
SPEAKER_00: Now we shift to the second illustration of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: But Matthew interrupts his flow of writing here to present a more extended section of Jesus' teaching on prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He spends more ink on prayer in this place than he did on giving and fasting.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to follow that same pattern.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to slow down and consider in greater detail what Jesus has to teach us about prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And as we consider verses five through eight this morning, we will learn what we should know before we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Before we ever utter a prayer to our God, what is it that we should know?
SPEAKER_00: Look with me at Matthew chapter six, beginning in verse five.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, 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.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you and the Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Coming before you in the power of the Spirit, telling you that we we sometimes don't know how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: We admit that, we confess that.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're uncomfortable, sometimes we don't have words, sometimes we just don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Help us.
SPEAKER_00: As you taught your disciples, teach us.
SPEAKER_00: Cause us to be to be receptive to what you say here.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe even to begin to change who we are and what we're like and how we approach speaking with you.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this for your glory, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: My dad had a ministry to young men over the course of three, four decades, probably.
SPEAKER_00: He would take boys and teenagers from the churches that he served and also from those same communities on a week-long backpacking trip into the Montana Mountains.
SPEAKER_00: He did that year after year after year.
SPEAKER_00: And the benefit for me as his son was that I got to go along every year.
SPEAKER_00: But each year, as we arrived at the trailhead in the mountains and finalized all of the gear that we were taking and got our packs all filled, my dad would give us the same instructions every single year.
SPEAKER_00: He would say, remember that you are far from help.
SPEAKER_00: There's only so much we can do if you get hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Be extra careful.
SPEAKER_00: If you break a leg, we don't have too many options.
SPEAKER_00: So don't step on wet logs.
SPEAKER_00: They're slippery.
SPEAKER_00: Avoid wet rocks, because those are slippery too, and you will slip and twist an ankle or fall into the water, and the water is extremely cold, so if you fall in, you could easily get hypothermia.
SPEAKER_00: Those reminders came every single year before we ever took a step on the trail.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they came during the week too.
SPEAKER_00: Because we needed the reminders.
SPEAKER_00: See, for young men, walking and running and climbing and jumping are second nature.
SPEAKER_00: We don't even think about doing those things.
SPEAKER_00: We just do them.
SPEAKER_00: It's a natural activity, but we still needed those simple instructions before we embarked on our adventure.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does something similar here.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer ought to be second nature for God's children.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking with our Father who is in heaven ought to be second nature to us.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to be able to speak with our Father and with our brother the Lord Jesus as naturally as anything.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some guidelines that are good for us to know before we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And we find three of those guidelines here in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been following along, you will see that Jesus continues his pattern of reminding his listeners of what they commonly saw taking place in their world.
SPEAKER_00: Then he offered his rebuttal, his correction of that false worship, of that fake righteousness, that false living.
SPEAKER_00: And so he told us in the first four verses of chapter six that when you give to the needy, don't go around sounding a trumpet so that everybody knows what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says to us now in the section on prayer, don't be like the hypocrites.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like the hypocrites.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, go into your own room, close the door, and pray.
SPEAKER_00: So here then is our first guideline.
SPEAKER_00: Be genuine.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to praying, we must be genuine.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be fake.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be something that you're not.
SPEAKER_00: Be real.
SPEAKER_00: Be who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Hypocrites generate a false impression of holiness.
SPEAKER_00: They put up a front that makes it appear as though they're righteous, as though they're right with God, when the reality is they're not.
SPEAKER_00: In our world, hypocrite has come to have an entirely negative connotation.
SPEAKER_00: But in Greek and Roman societies, its primary meaning was mostly similar to our word for actor.
SPEAKER_00: We use that term in a positive sense today.
SPEAKER_00: They referred to someone who played a part in a play at the theater, usually by donning a mask.
SPEAKER_00: So they were pretending to be someone or something that they were not.
SPEAKER_00: Actors take on a persona that we know is not their real being.
SPEAKER_00: In the realm of faith, someone who is acting like something they are not is a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_00: In particular, Jesus addresses here those who are who are not especially holy, but they want people to believe that they are.
SPEAKER_00: So they act in such a way as to make people believe that there's something that they are not.
SPEAKER_00: In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, the hypocrites want others to believe that they're tight with God, that they're right with him.
SPEAKER_00: They're walking step in step with God, they're doing what God wants them to do.
SPEAKER_00: Everything's good, they're righteous, they're God's children, but the reality is they have a level of righteousness that's just like the Pharisees that Jesus says isn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: Here, Jesus focuses on people that love attention.
SPEAKER_00: Like those who want everyone to know about their supposed generosity.
SPEAKER_00: This group wants to display their holiness by praying in the most public of places, where the most people are present, where the most people can hear and see them do this.
SPEAKER_00: They want an audience.
SPEAKER_00: But Martin Lloyd-Jones reminds us that there might be a subtle shift in this pattern today.
SPEAKER_00: Because we can have the same attitude even in private.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be in public.
SPEAKER_00: If we want people to know that we pray an hour every morning before we start our day, that's not any different than desiring attention in public.
SPEAKER_00: They want attention.
SPEAKER_00: But they do it with a particular intention, that they may be seen by others.
SPEAKER_00: Now we shouldn't get too caught up in the literalness of that word seen so that we miss the point.
SPEAKER_00: The point is a heart that wants attention, that wants its acting to be noticed.
SPEAKER_00: My son does quite a few things that are blatantly disobedient.
SPEAKER_00: He also does a lot of things in a desire to get attention.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying there are people who perform religious acts to get attention.
SPEAKER_00: In the first century, that acting was displayed in at times in public prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And that could still be true today.
SPEAKER_00: We can get attention for the length of time that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Although today the tendency would be to complain about long prayers rather than to see them as holiness.
SPEAKER_00: But we can gain attention even if we pray in secret.
SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't surprise me to hear someone say, Oh, I no, I don't pray in public.
SPEAKER_00: I pray in secret every day.
SPEAKER_00: And the desire is to gain attention for praying in secret.
SPEAKER_00: What's the attitude and intention of your heart when you pray?
SPEAKER_00: If you pray to gain attention, to be noticed, to present an image of yourself that is false, then your righteousness is more like the Pharisees than it is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: They do it, these hypocrites do this kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: They have this kind of heart attitude and they do their praying to gain attention because they can earn an immediate reward.
SPEAKER_00: Being a hypocrite is enticing.
SPEAKER_00: It is.
SPEAKER_00: Why did Eve take the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and eat it and give it to her husband so that he could eat?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're told exactly why.
SPEAKER_00: She saw that the tree was good to eat, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired.
SPEAKER_00: She was enticed by it.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same way with living out our faith today.
SPEAKER_00: Even something that is good and beneficial can be turned and used for sin and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me carefully.
SPEAKER_00: You can pray sinfully.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible to pray in a sinful way.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever considered that?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus describes here.
SPEAKER_00: Hypocrites pray to be noticed.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is an action that takes us in spirit right to the throne room of the King of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: Takes us right into his presence, into that holy of holies.
SPEAKER_00: And since prayer takes us into that presence of God, sin follows us right into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Why would we ever take sin with us into the presence of God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we bring sin even into our prayer because we believe it's worth it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a part of us that somehow believes there's something of value there.
SPEAKER_00: There's something that I can gain from being fake in my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And that's nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: God has seen that in his people for ages and ages.
SPEAKER_00: Consider Isaiah chapter 48, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: God says to Israel, hear, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, we believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're God's people.
SPEAKER_00: But God says, it's all fake.
SPEAKER_00: It's all false.
SPEAKER_00: But they did it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Because there was an immediate reward for doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Why did I why did I so often disregard my dad's warning to not walk on wet logs?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did that.
SPEAKER_00: Why did I so often use wet rocks as stepping stones?
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you why.
SPEAKER_00: It was a thrill.
SPEAKER_00: There was something exciting about making it across a log partially submerged in a lake or stream.
SPEAKER_00: Can I have broken an ankle or a leg or even died?
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
SPEAKER_00: But it was exciting.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is like that.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we pray.
SPEAKER_00: The sin here is hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_00: Showing others, putting something out there that you are not.
SPEAKER_00: And what's the reward?
SPEAKER_00: Immediate attention.
SPEAKER_00: We get noticed.
SPEAKER_00: Other people in church think highly of us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe someone in our small group that we're seeking to impress notices us.
SPEAKER_00: And so we begin to be asked to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we get asked to lead a prayer meeting or a Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: There's immediate reward.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus uses a verb tense here that suggests not that you receive all of the reward all at once, but there's this ongoing nature of the reward.
SPEAKER_00: They're receiving their reward as they're performing their publicity stunt.
SPEAKER_00: But like all sin, that ends at some point.
SPEAKER_00: And the reward is gone.
SPEAKER_00: It's over.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't last.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this underlying implication here that Jesus wants us to fight against sin in our prayer life.
SPEAKER_00: Recognize that sin can invade even your communication with your God.
SPEAKER_00: So we need to be aware of how much sin has invaded our hearts and our lives as it concerns speaking with God.
SPEAKER_00: Because selfishness and pride can drive our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Root it out.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.
SPEAKER_00: This is a parallel statement.
SPEAKER_00: To verse 3 of do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not intended to be strictly literal.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible for your hands to not know what the other is doing.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, it's impossible to go into your closet and shut the door and pray in dark without sin following you in there.
SPEAKER_00: Just by going into an enclosed space and shutting the door and turning off the light so that people can't see doesn't mean that sin isn't there.
SPEAKER_00: You don't leave selfishness and pride behind when you go into a tiny room and pray in the dark.
SPEAKER_00: See, what Jesus is doing is he's pointing us away from the work of sin in our lives, the work of sin to make even righteous things, righteous actions, sinful.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have any sense of pride in being seen when you pray, then pray in private.
SPEAKER_00: In a secret place instead.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a sense of pride in people knowing that you pray, then pray in secret without anyone ever knowing.
SPEAKER_00: Kill the sin of pride and hypocrisy in your prayer life.
SPEAKER_00: So before we pray, we need to check our attitudes.
SPEAKER_00: Are you able to find just as much joy, just as much connection to your Father who is in heaven by praying in a cramped, uncomfortable place as you can by everyone knowing that you're praying?
SPEAKER_00: Does praying without any attention whatsoever bring you joy and fulfillment and contentment?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you need more?
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus isn't condemning praying in public.
SPEAKER_00: He's not even condemning long prayers.
SPEAKER_00: He's condemning the attitude of desiring attention.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, be genuine.
SPEAKER_00: Don't put on a show because prayer is about speaking with your father, not about getting attention for it.
SPEAKER_00: Guideline number two, then, is be careful to not manipulate.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus points to a common problem among religious people.
SPEAKER_00: They often use vague and useless language with meaningless repetition.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus used an interesting word here.
SPEAKER_00: It's found only in this spot in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: But because it's not used anywhere else, it's a little bit difficult to arrive at a final, precise definition.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Greek word bottle a geo.
SPEAKER_00: And the New American Standard translates it as meaningless repetition.
SPEAKER_00: The NIV translates it as do not keep on babbling like the pagans.
SPEAKER_00: You're using the King James or the New King James, you're familiar with the phrase vain repetitions.
SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's probably an onomopoetic word, that's just a big word that linguists use.
SPEAKER_00: That it sounds like what it means.
SPEAKER_00: And it means like what it sounds.
SPEAKER_00: Bottle of gao sounds like babbling.
SPEAKER_00: So it's probably referring to babbling.
SPEAKER_00: Babbling on and on and on, saying the same things over and over again, or babbling on and on using meaningless words, stuff that doesn't mean anything.
SPEAKER_00: See, Gentile religions were filled with sounds and prayers and repetitions that had no real meaning or effect.
SPEAKER_00: It was just repetition for the sake of repetition.
SPEAKER_00: Many, many modern worship songs do the same thing, sadly.
SPEAKER_00: Much of the modern charismatic tongues movement falls into this category.
SPEAKER_00: Meaningless babbling to draw attention, to heighten emotions.
SPEAKER_00: And there are other modern corollaries.
SPEAKER_00: Endless chanting, saying endless our fathers, if you're from a Catholic background, using prayer beads, the lighting of endless candles, the process of like Teodivina.
SPEAKER_00: We could go on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, John Calvin wrote quite extensively about this issue.
SPEAKER_00: And he says in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, we find popery, by just pause, that's not the stuff that smells good.
SPEAKER_00: That's Roman Catholic theology, he's referring to the Pope.
SPEAKER_00: We find popery to be so deeply imbued with this error that it believes the efficacy of prayer to lie chiefly in talkativeness.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, your prayer becomes effective the more you talk.
SPEAKER_00: The greater number of words that a man utters, the more diligently he is supposed to have prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Long and tedious chanting also as if it were to soothe the ears of God.
SPEAKER_00: That continues today, not only in Catholicism, but in Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and other religions.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I just spoke with somebody this morning after the first service who told me about speaking with a Muslim person who was talking to them about doing their duty as a Muslim and their praying.
SPEAKER_00: And they were taught to say these Muslim prayers over and over again, even though they didn't speak Arabic.
SPEAKER_00: Bainless repetition.
SPEAKER_00: Bottle of geo, babbling on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: There's some biblical illustrations that I'd like to point out to you.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is 1 Kings chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite passages of scripture, I have many of them, but this is a passage of scripture that proves God has a sense of humor.
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: Follow along with me.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings chapter 18, beginning in verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah, the prophet Elijah, is on the top of Mount Carmel in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And he's up there with the 400 prophets, false prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And they're there because of a challenge that's been issued.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah has said, Hey, let's both offer sacrifices and see which God is real.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25 of 1 Kings 18.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, choose for yourselves one bowl and prepare it first, for you are many.
SPEAKER_00: And call upon the name of your God, but put no fire to it.
SPEAKER_00: They took that bowl that was given to them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon.
SPEAKER_00: It's at least three hours.
SPEAKER_00: Probably longer.
SPEAKER_00: O Baal, answer us.
SPEAKER_00: There was no voice and no one answered.
SPEAKER_00: So they limped around the altar that they had made.
SPEAKER_00: And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, Why don't you cry louder?
SPEAKER_00: He is God after all.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's on a journey.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened.
SPEAKER_00: They cried aloud and cut themselves after the custom that they had with swords and lances until blood gushed out on them.
SPEAKER_00: And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation.
SPEAKER_00: That's three o'clock in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: They've been babbling on and on for six hours, hoping to get the attention of their God.
SPEAKER_00: New Testament example.
SPEAKER_00: Book of Acts, Acts chapter 19.
SPEAKER_00: This is when the Apostle Paul is in the city of Ephesus, probably when the church in Ephesus is just getting its start.
SPEAKER_00: Book of Acts, Acts chapter 19.
SPEAKER_00: There's an issue that takes place here.
SPEAKER_00: People are coming to Christ, and as people come to trust in Christ, they're no longer buying idols.
SPEAKER_00: And the idol makers are getting upset.
SPEAKER_00: They gathered together, Acts chapter 19, verse 25, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, Hey, you know that it's from this business that we have our wealth.
SPEAKER_00: You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.
SPEAKER_00: And there is danger, not only that this trade of ours may come to disrepute, in other words, we're going to lose our source of income, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, that she may be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.
SPEAKER_00: When they heard this, they were enraged and started crying out, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: So the city was filled with confusion.
SPEAKER_00: They rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wished to go in among the crowd, but the disciples would not let him.
SPEAKER_00: Even some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and urged him not to venture into the theater.
SPEAKER_00: Some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not even know why they had gathered together.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward.
SPEAKER_00: And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: But when they recognized that he was a Jew for about two hours, they all cried aloud with one voice, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: Two hours.
SPEAKER_00: You imagine going on for two hours, great as Artemis of the Ephesians, over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, Jesus makes it clear to follow him means to pray with clarity, with sense, and with purpose in your words.
SPEAKER_00: Consider Paul, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14.
SPEAKER_00: He says, In church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue that people can't understand.
SPEAKER_00: Babbling on and on.
SPEAKER_00: But see, religious people, just like the hypocrites, have a particular intention of babbling on and on when they pray.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_00: For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, if we talk more, God will hear us.
SPEAKER_00: The more we talk, the more God is obligated to respond to us.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that Jesus doesn't say that long prayers are bad.
SPEAKER_00: He says it's the intention of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think that God will hear you if you pray longer?
SPEAKER_00: I would argue that longer prayers and spending four hours in prayer is probably not what most people should do.
SPEAKER_00: There's most likely sin in it.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a shift in audience here.
SPEAKER_00: In the first instance, the attention was desired from other people, from the crowds out in the marketplace.
SPEAKER_00: But here, there's a proper audience.
SPEAKER_00: They want God to hear them.
SPEAKER_00: They want God to hear their prayer.
SPEAKER_00: But they believe that they must convince him to listen by babbling and droning on and on.
SPEAKER_00: It's a form of manipulation.
SPEAKER_00: When Elijah mocked the priests of Baal, he suggested that maybe Baal couldn't hear them.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's busy and might miss what they say.
SPEAKER_00: If you believe that you need to pray longer to sort of twist God's arm or for him to hear you, then your God is a different God than the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's something missing here.
SPEAKER_00: There's something missing.
SPEAKER_00: It seems to be on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: So we have to ask why.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't say that these religious people earn a reward.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over again, we've been seeing, hey, these people do this and they do it to earn a reward.
SPEAKER_00: But these religious people don't earn a reward.
SPEAKER_00: Makes you wonder why.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: If your audience is God alone, you're genuinely wanting God to hear you, but you are praying to Him in a completely unacceptable way, then you're simply wasting your breath.
SPEAKER_00: Fight the pride that wants to control God through your prayer.
SPEAKER_00: How much of our prayers are trying to convince God to do it our way?
SPEAKER_00: Is God God or are we the ones who are in control?
SPEAKER_00: And so again, we are reminded to check our attitudes.
SPEAKER_00: Are we trying, in our prayers, are we trying even inadvertently?
SPEAKER_00: We don't do it on purpose, but do we try to twist God's arm into doing what we want?
SPEAKER_00: Are there things that we do, maybe even mindlessly, that point to an inner desire to manipulate God, to get him to do what we want.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's easy for us to fall into that pattern.
SPEAKER_00: So easy.
SPEAKER_00: Especially when we feel as though life isn't going our way.
SPEAKER_00: We feel that God is not on our side, then we can slip off the road of righteous prayer and end up in the ditch very easily.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus brings us around in verse 8, telling us that there's a third guideline before we pray.
SPEAKER_00: That is, be sure to remember your father.
SPEAKER_00: Who is our father?
SPEAKER_00: He's our father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's a position of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: It's a position of rule and authority.
SPEAKER_00: Your father is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: He's in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He rules.
SPEAKER_00: He is unlike any other.
SPEAKER_00: And because he is in a position of sovereignty, you can't tell him something that he doesn't already know.
SPEAKER_00: Consider a few passages of scripture from the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Whom did God consult?
SPEAKER_00: Who made him understand?
SPEAKER_00: Who taught him the path of justice?
SPEAKER_00: Who taught him knowledge?
SPEAKER_00: Who showed him the way of understanding?
SPEAKER_00: It's a hypothetical question, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
SPEAKER_00: No one.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 40, a little bit further on from this one in verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Have you not known?
SPEAKER_00: Have you not heard?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He does not faint or grow weary because his understanding is unsearchable.
SPEAKER_00: You can't measure how much God understands.
SPEAKER_00: There is no measurement possible that can take in all of God's knowledge and understanding.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't teach him something new in your prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to pray to your father as if you need to tell him something he doesn't know.
SPEAKER_00: You also can't manipulate him.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 42, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's my name.
SPEAKER_00: My glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved idols.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that God does is done for his own glory.
SPEAKER_00: Everything he purposes is done for his own glory, and he will not share his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, you cannot manipulate him to make him do something that he does not want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying that positively, God always does what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 43, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: I am he, I am God.
SPEAKER_00: There is none who can deliver from my hand.
SPEAKER_00: I work, and who can turn it back?
SPEAKER_00: You have time, read through Isaiah 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, and you will get this amazing humility.
SPEAKER_00: Much like what Job endured.
SPEAKER_00: Coming before God and saying, Ah, I'm nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You're everything.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know anything.
SPEAKER_00: You know everything.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 44, verse 24, thus says the Lord your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb.
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish.
SPEAKER_00: I alone do this.
SPEAKER_00: You can't change me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now this turns into an incredibly comforting truth for all of God's children.
SPEAKER_00: For those who, as we saw back in Matthew chapter 5, beginning of Matthew chapter 5, those who are poor in spirit, who come to Christ mourning over their sin, who are hungering and thirsting for his righteousness, who receive his comfort, who receive his peace, who become children of the living God, there is a truth that is incredibly comforting.
SPEAKER_00: Your father knows you and cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: Your Father, who is in heaven, knows what you need before you ask him.
SPEAKER_00: Down in verse 26, Jesus says, Look at the birds of the air.
SPEAKER_00: They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.
SPEAKER_00: Are they not of more value?
SPEAKER_00: Are you of not more value than they?
SPEAKER_00: Again, verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: If God so clothes the grass of the field that today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
SPEAKER_00: Your father knows you and he cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: Father in heaven is not some deadbeat dad who's never around or does not provide.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a selfish abuser.
SPEAKER_00: If your earthly father was evil, was unloving, if he's not someone to emulate, if he's not in any way like your perfect heavenly father, then you have to work hard to separate your vision and memory of your earthly father from that of your heavenly father.
SPEAKER_00: Because your heavenly father is perfect, and he loves you perfectly, and he cares for you, and he knows exactly what you need before you ever mention it to him.
SPEAKER_00: An old author named A.
SPEAKER_00: B.
SPEAKER_00: Simpson wrote, There is no wonder in this world more supernatural and divine in the life of a believer than the mystery and ministry of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The hand of the child touching the arm of the father and moving the wheel of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: Father loves you and knows you and cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what you need.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 32, for the Gentiles seek after all these things.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the Gentiles go on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: They babble and babble and babble by saying meaningless prayer after meaningless prayer.
SPEAKER_00: They just talk and talk and talk, thinking that their God will hear them.
SPEAKER_00: But your heavenly Father knows already that you need everything.
SPEAKER_00: If he already knows, then we won't be able to teach him anything.
SPEAKER_00: And we won't be able to convince him otherwise.
SPEAKER_00: My son likes to think that he needs pancakes every morning.
SPEAKER_00: He tries and tries to convince me.
SPEAKER_00: Your Heavenly Father knows what you need before you even say anything.
SPEAKER_00: Now he wants you to feel free, to tell him your needs, to tell him your wants, and to express your anxieties.
SPEAKER_00: Not as someone who's coming along to seek to control him to get what you want.
SPEAKER_00: But as a son or a daughter who's coming to their daddy and saying, Daddy, I want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the essence of Philippians chapter 4, verse 6, where we're told to not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, always with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.
SPEAKER_00: And once you do that, you can let it go.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to remain anxious about whether or not God has heard you, about whether or not he's going to answer you.
SPEAKER_00: Because the text goes on to say, let the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The peace of God can guard your hearts and minds because your Father's got you.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what you need.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you and He cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: John Calvin in his Harmony of the Gospels asks the question well, if that's the if that's the case, then why do we even need to pray?
SPEAKER_00: If God is ready to help us, why do we need to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: There's an easy answer.
SPEAKER_00: Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of somehow stirring him up to do his duty, or of urging him on as though he were reluctant.
SPEAKER_00: No, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, and that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them out to him.
SPEAKER_00: In a word, it's that they may declare that from him alone they hope and expect both for themselves and for others, all good things.
SPEAKER_00: God himself has purposed freely without being asked to bestow blessings upon us, but he promises to grant them through your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: We must therefore maintain both of these truths, that he freely anticipates our wishes and that we obtain by prayer what we ask.
SPEAKER_00: Be prepared to come to your Father with the right heart and then pray.
SPEAKER_00: With those guidelines in place, we're ready then to hear from Jesus how we ought to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Next time.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We confess to you that we need to learn.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much we need to know.
SPEAKER_00: So much we need to experience.
SPEAKER_00: We confess that too often we think we know it all.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, we even try to manipulate you.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time it's not our intention, Father.
SPEAKER_00: So we ask that you would hear our prayers as your children coming before you, talking to you as our daddy.
SPEAKER_00: So that we might rely on you as a son or daughter does with our perfectly loving Father.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to trust you and to follow you and to live out our faith with the right spirit, with the right heart, as children of our Father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.