Sermon Tone Analysis

I sure am glad that each one of you is here for part four of our series exploring the life of Jesus Christ.

We’ve already explored Christ’s baptism, His temptation in the wilderness, and the calling of His first disciples.

This morning we are going to look at a specific section of the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is probably Jesus’ most famous sermon, and in it He talked about everything from loving your enemies, to refusing to get divorced, to going the second mile for people, and a great number of other topics in between.

And tucked away there in the Sermon on the Mount, our Savior taught us the best way to pray to God.

And so this morning, we are going to study how to pray like Jesus taught us to pray.

And in case you closed your Bibles after Justin read, I ask you to turn back in your Bibles to Matthew chapter six, and we are going to be reading verses five through fifteen.

So again, Matthew six, starting in verse five.

“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.

After this manner therefore pray ye: ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.’

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Let’s pray together.

The title of my sermon this morning is, “Jesus: The Teacher of Prayers.”

As we study the teachings of our Lord in this passage, we are going to see seven distinct things that Jesus Christ teaches us about prayer.

And you will find those seven key facts on the hand out that you should have received.

And is there anyone that did not get a copy of that handout?

All right, then.

Let’s begin looking at what Jesus has to say about prayer.

Key #1: Our Prayers Should Take Place in Private

For this key we need to look at verses six and seven again.

Jesus says, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

In this verse, Jesus specifically brings a charge against the Pharisees.

The Pharisees, as we have discussed before, were mainly interested with outward appearances, and were not really that interested in matters of the heart.

So for a Pharisee, praying was not a time to commune with God.

Praying was a time to show off their skills to the general public.

Have you ever ran into a person like this?

I haven’t in this church, but I have in some other churches.

You probably know the type I’m talking about.

In the course of their 20-minute public prayer, they use as many fancy theological terms as possible, and they even throw a little warble into their voice for added emotion.

Or my personal favorite, the announcement prayer.

An announcement prayer goes something like this: “Dear Heavenly Father, please bless our church Easter egg hunt that we’re going to have in the lot across from the church on April 23rd from 11:00AM-1:00PM.

And Lord, please help Brother Red to not burn the hot dogs this year.

Amen.”

That’s an announcement prayer.

And let me throw out a quick disclaimer.

I love public prayer.

When I ask a person to lead in prayer, it is an honor, because it is that person’s privilege to lead the congregation in worship of God.

But the key is to remember Who we are praying to.

God doesn’t need to know our announcements, and God doesn’t need to hear the limits of our extensive vocabulary.

God wants to hear our hearts.

And while I do love public prayer, we can never take our focus off of private prayer.

Jesus tells us to do the bulk of our praying when we are by ourselves in a quiet place.

While praying in secret has many advantages, I want to point out two specific advantages.

The first advantage of secret prayer is that it allows us to be complete open with God.

Sometimes we have secrets that we just can’t broadcast in front of the whole congregation.

Sometimes we have sin that needs to be confessed to God that you don’t want to confess to the whole world.

But God knows even your secret needs and your secret sins, and you can tell Him anything in prayer.

The second advantage is that it allows us to exercise our faith in God.

When you pray something in secret that you do not want anybody else to know, and God answers your prayer, then you only have one Person to thank for that answer; and that’s God.

It could only be God, because nobody else even knew!

So key number one, we should always do the bulk of our praying in private.

Key #2: Our Prayers Should Not Treat God like He is Hard of Hearing

Let’s read verses seven and eight again.

“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.”

To understand this principle, we have to try to insert ourselves into the culture of Jesus’ day.

In the first century, the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians all had very complex pantheons of gods.

In fact, you could say that Judea was surrounded by idol worshippers!

And people in those times would do ridiculous things to make sure that the idols heard their requests.

Sometimes they would do horrible things like cut themselves, or scream at the top of their lungs, or sometimes even sacrifice their children in front of an idol.

But other times, to get the idol’s attention, they would simply keep repeating the same phrase over and over and over, just hoping that someone was listening.

I experienced this phenomenon when I had the privilege of going to Japan after my senior year of high school.

I went as a part of E-TEAM, which is a Free Will Baptist group that sends highschoolers around the world for three-week mission trips.

One day, our host missionaries took us to a Shinto shrine, so that we could see how many of the Japanese people worshipped.

When we arrived, we were surrounded by different shrines and idols that people prayed to.

But one lady in particular caught my eye.

She would walk up a long flight of stairs to a particular idol, and she would mutter a short phrase in Japanese and then bow down to the idol.

Then she would walk down the flight of stairs, all the way to the bottom.

And then she would turn around, walk back up, and mutter the exact same phrase to the idol.

She did this exact routine for the entire time we were there.

We never saw her start, and we never saw her stop.

That is vain repetition.

Isn’t that sad?

That woman wanted desperately for that hunk of rock to hear her cries for help.

What that woman didn’t know is that that idol was blind, deaf, and dumb.

In this verse, Jesus is telling us that our God is real, and He is not blind, deaf, or dumb!

Can I get an “Amen?”

God does not need us to repeat ourselves over and over, because He heard us the first time!

In fact, look at what our text says in the second half of verse eight.

“for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” God is really, really smart.

He knows exactly what you need before you even ask.

But Jesus in this verse is not telling us to give up praying after the first time!

Very often God desires for us to pray about something for years before He decides to act.

But what we must realize is that our God is real, and we must pray to Him like He is real.

I realize that this principle is not something that most people struggle with, but I think that sometimes we pray a prayer without even really thinking about the words that are coming out of our mouths.

I don’t have a problem with teaching little children a simple prayer to pray before a meal, but the problem comes when that prayer becomes an empty ritual before we get to eat.

Our God is real, and we need to pray as if when we call out to God, He hears our prayers, and He is going to act on our prayers.

Key #3: Our Prayers Should Admire God’s Character