Matthew 6 verses 5-15
If your church did a survey amongst you I wonder how many of you would say you pray regularly. Yet let me ask you a question: What is Prayer? That seems to me to be a fundamental question when we come to look at the topic of prayer. If someone were to ask you what you are doing when you pray, how would you answer? If your church is to be a healthy church then a key ingredient is prayer. The purpose of this blog is not to persuade you that you ought to pray but to actually persuade you to pray. If you already pray then the purpose of this is to encourage you to keep on praying. If you are struggling to pray then it is my desire and prayer that this will help you in your prayer life.
Luke 11 verse 1 - here is an interesting question asked by the disciples of Jesus. This is Luke's account of the passage from Matthew 6. The disciples could have asked Jesus many questions but they asked him to teach them to pray. For three years they follow Jesus. For three years they watch him perform miracles, raise people from the dead, feed 5000 with loaves and fishes and calm a raging sea. For three years they listen to him teach amazing stories which confound the religious intelligentsia but are understood with those who have ears and hearts of faith. They see him transformed before them and when they have the opportunity they ask him to teach them to pray. Why? Well, I believe the one thing that is pretty clear in the four gospels is that Jesus is a man of prayer. No doubt he followed the Judaic practice of praying three times a day. It is pretty clear that he often withdrew from the crowds of people, and even from the disciples, to seek his father's face in prayer. When Judas comes to betray him he knows exactly where Jesus will be in the garden of Gethsemane. Do you think that is an accident? I am more convinced that it was a regular place of prayer for Jesus and Judas knew this to be so. He is also certain that at such a time as the Passover Jesus will go to this private place of prayer. There is a pattern and practice of prayer in the life of Jesus that we could all do well to follow.
So let us turn to Matthew 6 and hear what Jesus taught his disciples concerning prayer. Look at verse 5 and the words of Christ: "when you pray..." There is an assumption that his disciples, his followers, will pray. He assumes that prayer will be part of their daily lives. So the first thing we learn is that Christ expects his followers to pray.
He then sets down simple guidelines for them when they pray. The first thing is they are to go somewhere private and quiet. Their sole concern should be God. This is in stark contrast of the religious leaders of their day who made sure everyone saw them pray. Their concern is to be alone with God their Father - nothing else and no one else matters. So find a quiet place to pray. Now I know that might be difficult but be honest how much time do we make for other things in our lives and yet we do not go to the same effort to find that quiet space for prayer. If it is a priority we will find the time and the place. You know I have found walking the dog a great opportunity to pray. So find a quiet place. Please notice the promise that Jesus attaches here - your heavenly Father will hear you when you pray. That is a promise to us all - God hears our prayers - so be assured of that because Christ himself has promised it.
Verse 9 - Relationship. When Christ begins his model prayer he addresses God as Father who is in heaven. This was a traditional means of opening a Hebrew prayer. Christ followed a pattern known to his disciples since childhood prayers in their homes, the synagogue and Temple. What pattern of prayer are your children learning from you? Our Father is a personal address to God. Here is an important lesson for us all - at the very core of prayer is a personal relationship with a personal God. At the heart of prayer Christ says, is a relationship of sons and daughters with a 'Father.' Christ begins prayer with an intimate term of endearment - 'Abba.' There is nothing impersonal about prayer - it is the most personal and intimate relationship between Almighty God and his children. Please note how Christ taught his disciples to address God - 'Our Father...' please don't be flippant about how you address God in prayer and please note it is to the Father that we pray. Yes we pray in the power of the Holy Spirit through Christ, God's only begotten Son, but it is to the Father that our prayers are directed.
Christ Jesus then lifts his voice in adoration of his Father - stating the holiness and otherness of God. Again this is part of traditional Hebraic prayers of the day. Once again Christ is not departing far from what His disciples have learned as children and is familiar to them, after all it was to the God of Israel that they were praying but in a new relationship through His Son. God is His Name - Exodus 33.19 - when Moses asks to see the glory of God - God says 'I will make my glory pass before you and I will declare my name...' God is His Name and in Scripture your name was more than what you were called it referred to your whole character and being. God's name is holy because He is holy - and we are instructed to call him 'Father.' This is why the commandment tells us that God's name is not to be taken in vain.
It is because God's Name reveals his character - holiness and it is not to be taken lightly because holiness is not to be taken lightly and I wish we as a people would learn that again. So when we come to pray remember before whom it is that you come in prayer - He who is holy, who is purity in and of himself and who cannot, will not, have sin in his presence. You and I have no right to be in his presence save by the blood of Christ shed for us and atoning for our sins - so do not take prayer lightly and do not enter his presence flippantly. Address him correctly because His name is holy and he will not hold you blameless for taking it in vain, even in prayer.
Verse 10 note what comes next in this model prayer - God's will and God's kingdom. Why had Christ come - to do the will of the Father. What should be our primary concern in life? The will of God our Father and his kingdom. That should be the basis of all our prayers - what is God's will in this situation and what will further God's kingdom in my life, in the life of my family, church and this situation. How different our prayers would be if this was our priority in prayer. So take note - a healthy church will have the will of God the Father and the furtherance of his kingdom as its priority - especially in prayer.
Verse 11 - now we enter upon our needs in this model prayer. There has been a lot of teaching on this phrase over the centuries and I don't wish to go into the detail. However, notice the simplicity of this phrase. Notice what is not being asked for and what is being asked for. Christ assures them that God, their Father, is concerned about their daily needs - after all not even a sparrow falls to the ground without their heavenly Father knowing. It is their daily bread, the basic things of life that they are to ask for. Friends ask yourself - what are the basic food needs of your life? Maybe you can remember famine scenes from the past - daily bread means what to you compared to those in such situations? When I read this phrase in prayer I am caught up by God's Spirit to get a right perspective on my daily bread. My prayers so often move from basic necessities of life to the luxuries of life in the west - how tragic is that? Or should I say how blasphemous?
Verse 12 - Christ now moves in his model prayer to forgiveness of sins. They were to ask God, their Father, for forgiveness but do you notice there is an onus on them to offer forgiveness also. Christ has elsewhere taught parables on forgiveness - the unforgiving servant for example and the healing of the man lowered down through the roof. When I know forgiveness of my sins, and how great they are and at what cost, then I am motivated in my prayers to forgive others. So in prayer I not only seek God's forgiveness but I seek to forgive others. Prayer changes me as I pray - is that not part of the teaching of this phrase?
Verse 13 - again I want you to take a moment and ponder these two prayer requests. We ask that we might be spared the trial of temptation and delivered form the 'evil one.' Do you notice also that these phrases are not individual but plural (group) - 'give us...forgive us...lead us...deliver us' Whilst we pray as individuals prayer is also corporate in nature. My concern is for my brother and sister in Christ also to be spared from the trials of faith for protection against the evil one in this world. Why would Christ pray such a phrase? Read Ephesians 6 verse 12. Here is the battle that we seek deliverance from and protection in. In prayer we are involved in a spiritual battle and we wrestle against powers in the spiritual realm that we have no real understanding of and no power against save the blood of Christ Jesus.
To conclude read - Romans 8 verses 26-27. Traditionally people have understood these verses to mean that the Holy Spirit takes our hearts cries and intercedes before the Father for us. Yet that does not do true justice to the text. Paul is saying that the Holy Spirit comes to our aid to help us pray aright. Sometimes we do not know what to pray for (out of ignorance) and sometimes we do not pray well. So the Holy Spirit comes and puts into words what we ought to pray and enables us to pray aright - since he already knows the will of the Father. So even in our weakness, in our inability to put into words the deep longings of our souls God in his desire to communicate with us has given us the Holy Spirit who intercedes because we are unable to do so. One writer said this of this work of the Holy Spirit: 'this prayer is the very breath of the soul.' I think that is a wonderful description of this work of God's Spirit in our lives.
This blog has really only scratched the surface of the Bible's teaching on prayer. Here is the essential point though - pray - actually pray. Get alone with God and pray. Call on him as your Father because he has promised to hear you and answer you. Lift your voice to him in prayers of adoration, confession, thanks and supplication (request). Pray, pray and pray again. Pray as an individual and with others. Come together with others in this fellowship and pray. Without prayer your church will die. Without your prayers your pastor may struggle each week. It is the prayers of the saints that powers the church forward. So if you want to be a healthy church you need to pray. Not talk about it but pray. Not just preach about it but pray. Not just read about it and learn about it but actually pray. So you want to be healthy, spiritually healthy -then pray. Finally - note what Christ says at the beginning of his prayer- it is not about your elegant words, nor the vain repetition of them - it is about a relationship with God that enables you, his child, to come to your heavenly Father and he promises to hear and answer - so pray.
Amen.
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