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*Doing Prayer, God Style \\ Matthew 6:5-15*
Last week, I asked you to write down what you thought it would take to make First Baptist Church a Christ centered church.
There were some that listed one thing, and others that listed several things.
The top three were prayer, learning to evangelize and speak to others, and leadership.
Out of the top three, prayer was listed on over two thirds of those that turned something in.
So let’s talk about prayer.
When you were a child did you ever talk to your parent?
Of course you did.
Some of us parents wish that maybe our kids wouldn’t talk to us sometimes, but that’s a whole topic in its self.
But for those of us who are parents, when your child was young and could not talk to you, wasn’t the first “mom” or “dad” that came from that sweet child’s mouth enough to make you melt into a puddle?
I remember my son’s first words.
Mom of course.
I couldn’t wait for him to say dad.
Well, just as a child speaks to his parents, God, our Father in heaven, wants to hear from His children; He wants to hear of the good and the trials in our lives.
He already knows what they are, but He wants to hear them from our perspective.
When we think of prayer, we often either do the traditional, “Dear God thank you for the this and that, I want, I want, I want;” or we don’t pray at all because we think that God is too busy to hear about “little ole me”.
We end up making God the giver of trinkets and man’s desires instead of the giver of life and salvation.
We fashion Him so that He wants what we want and end up making a god that is after our own image.
But that is not who or what God is.
It is just the opposite; we are made after His image.
So when we pray, how do we pray?
Does God want some formal liturgy like we are reading stereo instructions?
God wants us to do prayer “God style”.
When Jesus was walking the earth, the disciples asked Him how they should pray.
See, in the years between the Old Testament writings and New Testament writings, the Israelites tried desperately to make things right with God.
But they couldn’t do it.
Unfortunately, man corrupted even the positive things that they had discovered.
Take the Pharisees.
The Pharisees actually were formed to remove the very the worldly and pagan influences from Judaism.
They wanted to be literal to the Scriptures.
What happened though is that this was man formed and became man centered.
They began to add to and take away from the Scriptures.
They took the passages in the Psalms that said to pray once, twice, three times daily and made that so you were only praying at those times.
Then they said that you are to publically pray.
They would pray loud and boisterously so that all could hear them.
“LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, MOST HONORED AND REVERED GOD, GOD OF GRACE AND GOD OF WRATH, PRAISE BE TO THE ONE AND ALMIGHTY GOD.
THE GOD OF ISRAEL, GOD OF JACOB…” They did this so that everyone could see that they were being holy.
This reminds me of Islam in that they pray five times per day, on their faces for all to see.
Well, the disciples knew that this method of the Pharisees couldn’t be what God wanted, so they asked Jesus in Matthew 6:5-15 how to pray.
Jesus would know!
Please turn with me to Matthew 6:5-15:
And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men.
Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
But when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
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.
Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him.
Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, Hollowed by Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
Amen.
For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
Now this is a very structured prayer that Jesus gave us to follow.
Does it mean that if you pray other words, God doesn’t hear you?
There are some so-called Christian groups that believe if you don’t pray a formalized prayer, God won’t hear you.
This is not true!
Let’s look at how Jesus broke this prayer down for us.
First, we are to honor God.
Jesus says, “Our Father who art in heaven.
Hallowed by Thy name” or “Holy is Your name.”
He gives much deserved reverence to God.
Does that mean that if we say, “Dad” like a new Christian might, or just simply “God” that we are disrespecting God? No. When we call our father by dad, it is still a name or title of respect.
My dad’s name is Loren.
I couldn’t imagine calling him “Loren” when I called him.
I respect and love my dad, and so to call God “Dad” would be a name of respect and love.
We shouldn’t hinder a person’s prayer by formalities.
That is what the Pharisees did.
However we call on God’s name in prayer, the key is that it is to be in respect, in reverence, and in love.
That is how Jesus tells us to call upon God.
Next, Jesus tells us that we are to respect and acknowledge the authority of God. “Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
There are so many people in this world today that know these words, but don’t understand their meaning.
When you say “Thy kingdom come” or “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” you are acknowledging that God has the full authority over every single aspect in life.
From the vastness of space, to the smallest cell, God is in control of it all.
God created time and space.
He created every animal, every plant, and every person.
We need to acknowledge His total authority.
Then He asks God to provide for our needs; needs mind you, not necessarily all of our wants.
Our wants can lead us away from Him, but our needs will always bring us to Him. Jesus says, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
I believe that Jesus meant two things in this sentence.
To give us this day and our daily bread is to mean to take care of our basic needs: food, water, shelter, and contact with people or fellowship.
But it also is a little deeper.
Jesus refers to Himself as the bread of life in John 6:22.
So when we ask for God to give us our daily bread, we not only ask for our basic needs to be fulfilled, but also that we are filled or anointed by the Spirit of God; the One Jesus promised would come.
That He would anoint us on this day that we may be fruitful to His commission for His children.
If we are anointed daily with His grace and mercy, imagine how much of an impact we can make for His kingdom.
Now there is a difference between anointing and being filled by the Spirit.
When you accepted Jesus as your savior, you were immediately sealed by the Holy Spirit; making you a child of God.
Being anointed is asking and receiving God’s grace and asking that He can work through you.
When we ask for our daily bread, we are asking that we are anointed so that we may complete the work that God has for us in a way that is pleasing to Him.
In our passage, Jesus continues by asking forgiveness of our debts, and of our trespasses against Him and others, as we have forgiven our debtors or those who have trespassed against us.
Now I want to jump down to the end of this passage just real quickly because it completes this thought.
“For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”
This creates the most problem areas for believers and has become a stumbling block to unbelievers when you are talking about prayer in relation to the nature of our salvation.
Remember the audience here, because this is key; Jesus was speaking to believers.
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