"5 "When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
7 "And
when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles
do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."
Preparation is a critical part of the success of any meaningful activity, this is especially true in the life of a believer when it comes to prayer. Prayer is as essential to our spiritual lives, as breathing is to our physical lives. In fact, it is our lifeline to God. Prayer is a wonderful privilege enjoyed by the children of God. It is through prayer, we can find peace, and receive mercy and grace to help in our time of need.
The author of Hebrews 4 tells us, "Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
However, not all prayers are acceptable to God. Jesus has much to say about prayer, especially the kind of prayer which find favor with God. In His most important sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives His most important teaching on our preparation for prayer, in these verses proceeding the Lord's Prayer. You cannot study this prayer in a hurry, otherwise you miss the whole point.
Unfortunately, there are many people who simply recite this prayer, without ever experiencing it's monumental instructive capability. I believe it is vitally important that every believer learn how to pray, in order to experience the fullness of communion with God. For some, prayer can actually be a kind of performance, using strategic voice inflection and pausing at just the right moments for effect. Too often, we're more concerned with "getting it right," because other people are listening, rather than praying for the right reasons. For the record, those who pray to impress others get the reward of impressing others. Because ostentatious prayer doesn’t mean anything to God. Prayer isn't for show, it's for talking to God. Sometimes, you’re just letting others listen in on your conversation.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, we thank You for Your Word for us today, for filling our hearts with joy, as we come together to worship You. Condition our hearts, that all of our prayers may not be be ritualistic, or repetitious. But unselfish and for the advancement of Your kingdom, for Your glory. As we approach the throne of grace, help us to realize that You are the source of our life, and we are true sons and daughters. Lord, we are humbled by the fact that You would even want us to be part of Your family, that Christ willingly laid down His life for us. We are so unworthy of such a great privilege. Help us to live every moment of our life in such a way that honors and glorifies all that He's done and all that He is. All for Your glory and Christ's sake.
In His name we ask and pray
Amen
Today's Message: Prayer That Pleases God
As we return to our study of Matthew chapter 6, the Sermon on the Mount, we find ourselves in verses 5 through 8. Matthew 6:5-8. Whenever you get into any type of discussion of prayer, you're bound to run into some difficulty. It is challenging for our finite minds to comprehend how prayer functions within the sovereign plans of God. There are some who hold the view that doesn’t do anything unless you pray unceasing, fervent prayers. beseeching God to do what He otherwise would never do, which can alter God's plan. While others hold the view that God's going to do what He will do, whether you pray or not.
There are certainly times when we see in the Scripture that men pray and it says God changed His mind. And, there are other times when God says, I’m going to do what I’m going to do. So, it can be very difficult to deal with what is the truth sometimes. Personally, I believe in prayer and I have experienced many miracles in my life as a result of many prayers. In fact, I have witnessed God defy medical science and explanation numerous times. The greatest of men have never been able to resolve the divine mystery of how a human prayer moves an omnipotent, divine hand of God.
Just to be clear, I do not expect to solve the problem of such divine mystery. Whether or not we can fathom how the divine mystery of prayer is not ours is not to reason. What we do know and what we must know, is that the Bible teaches principles of prayer, and God expects us to be obedient. I pray and trust that God will speak to all of us in regard to prayer through Jesus, as He teaches us a lesson of prayer in this tremendous passage.
As a remember, Jesus is speaking not only to the Jewish people, and to His disciples, but the scribes and Pharisees, who represent the religious leaders. The point in this entire sermon is to contrast true spiritual standards of God with the phony, false standards of the Pharisaic, Judaistic system of the day. Throughout His entire sermon thus far, He has been confronting their inadequate, sub-standard theology.
You will recall in our last message, Jesus selected three areas out of their traditional religious activities that were inadequate; giving, praying, and fasting. Last time, He pointed out they were hypocritical in their giving toward men. Today, we will look at verses five through eight, Jesus tackles them on the issue of prayer and we will see how even their praying was inadequate and hypocritical.
Prayer was central in the Jewish religion, it was, and still is, a major issue among the Jews. In fact, a very common Rabbinical saying was, "Great is prayer; greater than all good works." No nation ever had a higher ideal of prayer than the Jews had; and no religion ever ranked prayer higher in the scale of priorities than the Jews did. The Jewish liturgy supplied stated prayers for every occasion. Unfortunately, each prayer was so meticulously prescribed, they just rolled off the tongue, with little or no meaning. Today, many Christians have the same issue. Here, Jesus warns us against the same Pharisaical hypocrisy in praying.
I believe one of the greatest statements that was ever made about family worship is "He who prays within his house surrounds it with a wall that is stronger than iron." I believe that one of the biggest things that troubled Jesus was that too often good things were done with all the wrong motives, with the sole intention of bringing glory to the doer, rather than the glory of God.
Verse 5, "When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full." Notice Jesus says "they loved to stand and pray," standing was the normal Jewish posture for prayer. In fact, the Old Testament teaches three prayer postures: praying standing, praying kneeling, and praying lying prostrate. By the way, there nothing wrong with either. The synagogue was a place where a lot of people stood and prayed. The synagogue was really the forerunner of the church, it was a place of assembly to hear the reading of the law. However, if you happen to be going down the street and it was time to pray, you
prayed wherever you are. So that was very normal. Jews would be praying
all over the place.
Now, at a glance, that appears honorable, until you read further and He says "they loved to pray so that they may be seen by men." In other words, they were putting on a show for everybody to see how holy they were. So Jesus is dealing with the motive of our prayers. He warns our prayers are not to be offered to men, but to God. We are not to concern ourselves with how men like our performances, our business in prayer lies with God.
In the Greek verb for prayer, is "proseúxomai," a compound of "prós" meaning "with," and "euxomai,"meaning "a vow." To pray correctly, a man pouring out of the soul unto God, as by a vow, dedicated to Him, accompanied with the most earnest desire that it may know, love, and serve Him alone. The hypocrites manifested the same spirit in prayer as they have about giving: they just did it in public places for public acclaim.
One thing I've learned, that in my own public prayer life, I really just shut all of you out and talk one-on-one with God. Sometimes, I’ll be praying and all of a sudden, someone says "Amen," or something and I think to myself, "Oh yeah, there's other people here." However, I want you to understand, in those quiet moments when I enter His presence, I've often had Satan attempt to invade my prayer life. So, don't think that just because you're communing with God that Satan doesn’t invade it. He will throw every temptation and distraction possible in your way. Prayer is sacred but not to Satan. In fact, I have learned there’s no ground so holy that Satan doesn’t try to get in on. Satan follows us right into the very presence of God, and so does sin, pride often defiles our deepest devotions. The Pharisees may have been praying, but their prayers had fallen to Satan’s temptation. Jesus condemns two faults in their prayers.
Notice Jesus says "when you pray." in verse 5, and you see it again in verses 6 and 7. Prayer is natural to a believer, so the Lord assumes you’ll pray. So when you pray, "you are not to be like the hypocrites." Also, I'd like you to notice, in verse 2 when Jesus talked about giving to the poor in streets, He used
the word "rhumé" for "narrow" streets. Now He uses the word "platus," for "wide streets." I believe Jesus is hinting at something here, don’t be like the hypocrites who pray standing in the synagogues and in the widest possible intersections. Obviously, the issue wasn't the wide streets, because you could pray anywhere you wanted, the issue was they wanted to be seen by men.
So, in verse 6, He says "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." Jesus isn't saying that praying in public is condemned by God, just that in your prayers, make sure you’re communing with God, not performing for men. He's condemning self-centered prayer, calling attention to yourself. He uses the word "tameion," which means bed chamber, or closet, the most private place you have, where you wouldn't want to bring anyone, the place where you kept your treasures. Your prayer life is very personal. If you are lost in the secrecy of a communion with God, there is an intimacy, and you will be rewarded from God. Some people are afraid to pray out loud in front of someone else. Some of you probably feel that way. It doesn’t matter what they think. Be yourself, pray your own words and in your own way, God will hear you.
That's why He says at the end of verse 5, "they have their reward." They wanted to receive praise from men and they got it, that's the point. Their reward was human applause, God owes them nothing. He uses the word "misthós," meaning appropriately compensated for a particular action. It was a word used for a business transaction that is closed and receipted. My communion with God is very private, He sees the secrets of my heart. I can tell Him everything, I can pour out my heart to Him, and He never tells anyone. I do tell some things to people, but I'm basically a very private person. Prayer is not to be a liturgical exercise, it is talking honestly with God, to give Him reverence, asking for physical necessities, as well as our spiritual needs and seeking to align our heart with His Will. God pours His blessedness on those who are pure in heart.
Then, in verse 7, Jesus again paints a vivid contrast. "And
when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles
do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words." The Gentiles, referring to non-Jewish people, would pray to their false gods with repetitious babbling prayers. They believed their gods had to be awakened to hear them. So, He uses the verb "battalogeó," it means to utter empty words, or stammer. The Greeks used the word "barbaros" to speak of uncultured people with foreign languages that were unintelligible to them. It sounded like bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, which is where the word barbarian came from, the word barbaros. It's onomatopoetic.
There is nothing wrong with repetitious prayer, Jesus prayed the same prayer to the Father three times in Matthew 26, so repetition is not bad, if it's for the right reasons. Further, the Apostle Paul prayed three times regarding the thorn in his side. The man in Luke 11 pleaded over and over again with constant repetition for his need and it was met. And, in Luke 18, Jesus tells us the parable of the persistent widow, to show that at all times we ought to pray and not to lose heart. I believe the honest cries of a burdened heart is a legitimate reason for repetition. Meaningless, repetitious incantations were the common practice in pagan religions, that is what Jesus was pointing at. Don’t try to con God by repeating some meaningless incantation. The issue isn’t the length of your prayer or the repetition, it’s the purity of it that matters to God. Prayer is much more about God instructing us, than it is us instructing God.
That brings us to verse 8, "So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." God cannot be informed of anything which He does not already know, we do not pray in an attempt to talk God into giving us what we need. We pray to produce a proper attitude, to become sensible in our wants. This is in sharp contrast with the gods of the Gentiles. "Your Father knows what you need before you ask," is not meant for everyone, Jesus is addressing His disciples and those who are poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, hungry and thirsty souls, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. In other words, those belong to the Kingdom of God. Those who humble their heart, concern themselves with making their Father's interests their own, are assured that their Father, in return, makes their interests His concern.
In Closing..
When we pray, we are to pray devout heart, a pure motive seeking the glory of God, and only the attention of God. Asking with childlike simplicity, knowing that He already knows all that you need, and in faith, believing that He will reward you.
May it be so..
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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