This is Robert Jeffress. In response to the horrific attack on Israel, I've written a brand new book called Are We Litting in the End Times?
Go to ptv.org to order your copy. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. As God's children, we've been granted unlimited access to His throne room with the ability to place our requests before Him through prayer.
Yet many Christians fail to realize the power and the significance of this immense privilege. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress helps us unlock the power of prayer in our lives. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David. And just before we start today's message, let me call your attention to the 2024 Pathway to Victory cruise vacation to Alaska.
The dates are June 15th through 22nd. Alaska is often dubbed the last frontier. And once you see the expansive vistas, the cascading mountains, the quaint seaside villages, you'll gain a whole new appreciation for what that truly means. So come and explore the last frontier with us this coming June. I've invited singers Michael O'Brien and Rebecca St. James to bring great, inspiring music. And my favorite comedian, Dennis Womberg, will be with us as well. Along the way, I'll also be opening God's Word to share with you.
All the details of this trip are online at ptv.org. Well, today we're beginning a study on a fascinating topic. For the next several weeks, we'll give our complete attention to a series I'm calling Prayers That Really Work. As a complement to this practical study, I'm pleased to offer one of the most creative children's books I've ever seen on this topic.
Even if I am biased. My daughter, Julia Jeffress Sadler, has written a book for your children and grandchildren. It's called You Can Pray Big Things. Right after my message today, I'll explain how you can be among the first to receive your copy of You Can Pray Big Things.
By the way, this book would make a great book for Christmas. But right now, let's turn our attention to Matthew Chapter 6. I titled this first message, Prayers That Really Work. One of the greatest scandals in evangelical Christianity today is the fact that churches that believe in the inspiration of Scripture, that believe in the importance of reading the Bible and praying, those kind of churches are filled with Christians who don't do much of either. We all say we believe that prayer is absolutely vital to maintaining our relationship with God. We believe that. You know, I think most of us today would be embarrassed to admit how little time we spent this past week talking to our Heavenly Father.
Why is that? Why is it we say one thing, that we believe in the importance of prayer, but truthfully we pray so little? Perhaps my friend Max Andrews had it right when he wrote, Most of us don't pray as much as we feel we should, not because we're unwilling, but because we're uncertain how to pray, and don't understand why our prayers aren't answered more consistently.
It's frustrating to keep doing something that you're not sure is working. How can you learn to pray effectively? How can you use prayer as a means to deepen your intimacy with your Heavenly Father?
How can you tap into and experience God's supernatural power in your life? We're going to answer those questions in a brand new series we're beginning today, Prayers That Really Work. And the basis for this series is perhaps the most famous prayer in history. It's a prayer found in Matthew chapter 6. It's the prayer that we commonly call the Lord's Prayer. So if you have your Bibles this morning, I want you to open to Matthew chapter 6. Now this prayer in Matthew 6 is a part of a sermon Jesus preached.
We call it the Sermon on the Mount. And in this sermon Jesus is basically rocking the world of the Pharisees. He's talking about the kingdom of God, and what he is doing is he's showing how the true coming kingdom of God is absolutely opposite what the Pharisees thought it would be. And Jesus turns the Pharisees' expectations upside down. He talks about all kinds of subjects, even dealing with worship. In Matthew 6 he talks about the subject of giving and the subject of fasting. And for the Pharisees, giving and fasting was more for show than it was for spirituality. But Jesus spent the bulk of his time addressing the subject of prayer in this chapter.
Why is it? Why did Jesus spend most of the Sermon on the Mount talking about the subject of prayer? Listen to this. For Jesus, prayer wasn't optional. It was essential to his life and to his ministry.
I want you to think about this. Jesus Christ was equal with God the Father, and yet he felt it necessary to pray. Jesus Christ was absolutely devoted to making prayer the foundation of his life. You know, most of us, we get this wrong idea about Jesus.
We so focus on his deity, we forget to focus on his humanity. Yes, Jesus was 100% God. He was God in the flesh, but he was also 100% man. It wasn't 50-50, 50% God, 50% man. He was 100% God, but he was also 100% human. No, he didn't inherit the sinful part of man.
But he inherited other weaknesses that we've inherited. Jesus was hungry. He had to eat. There were times he was thirsty. There were times Jesus got up in the morning and had a sore throat, but still had to go to work. Jesus also got tired.
Now listen to this, folks. If Jesus Christ, the Son of God, sinless, perfect worker of miracles, if Jesus Christ felt it absolutely necessary to make prayer a priority in his life, how much more essential is prayer for people like you and me? Now the first lesson Jesus teaches us about prayer, not just by word but by example, is that prayer, communication with God, is not a nicety. It is a necessity for our spiritual life. Martin Luther said to be a Christian without praying is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. Prayer is essential to our spiritual life. And that's why Jesus gave what we call this Lord's Prayer.
In Luke's account of this incident, this prayer was in response to the disciples' request, Lord, teach us how to pray. And we get this funny idea about the apostles, you know, we paint pictures of them and put them on our walls, or we, you know, in some churches make them saints. And that wasn't the apostles. They were just an ordinary group of men, and quite frankly, many of them weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, if you know what I mean.
They weren't real swift. But after hanging around Jesus for a period of time, even the disciples made the connection between Jesus' power and his prayer life. After being around Jesus and seeing the way he lived his life, and seeing the miracles that he performed, and seeing his oneness with the Father, and then seeing how often he prayed, they were able to connect the dots, and they said, Lord, we want that power in our life. We want that kind of intimacy with God in our life. Lord, teach us how to pray. And so we have in Matthew 5, beginning with verse 9, the model of how to pray. But before Jesus tells us how to pray, he first of all tells us how not to pray. Think about this. The two single greatest battles Jesus ever had with Satan occurred while Jesus was on his knees praying to God.
Do you realize that? Two greatest times of conflict with Satan occurred during Jesus' prayer time. Once while he was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, the other the night before he died in the Garden of Gethsemane. Don't be surprised that Jesus wants to guard us against corruption in our prayer life. And so what he does, beginning in verse 5, he shares with us two things, two errors we need to guard against in our praying. He says, first of all, guard against hypocrisy when you pray.
Look at verse 5. When you pray, and isn't it interesting, he doesn't say if you pray. To Jesus, it was beyond his imagination that Christians would do anything but pray. He says, when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites. Now underline that word hypocrites. What's a hypocrite? When we think of a hypocrite, we think of somebody who says one thing and does another, don't we? That's our understanding of hypocrite.
But that's not exactly an accurate picture. The word in Greek here translated hypocrite referred to an actor on a stage. In Greek drama, the hypocrite was the one who wore a mask and played a particular part.
An actor on the stage was performing actions. He was speaking words that were not his own. He was simply playing a role. He was playing someone else in his speech and actions. And that's what a hypocrite is. A hypocrite is somebody who is playing a part. He's playing like someone he is not. So Jesus said, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites.
Don't just simply be playing a role. Of course, he had in mind here the Pharisees. How did they pray? Jesus said in verse 5, For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners.
That's how Pharisees pray. They stand. There's nothing wrong with standing. Throughout the Bible, people stood when they prayed. Sometimes they were prostrate on the ground when they prayed.
There's nothing wrong with standing per se. He said they stand in the synagogues. Again, nothing wrong with praying in the synagogue. The synagogue were the local places of worship when people could travel to the temple. Nothing wrong with praying in the synagogue. He said they pray on the street corners. That word translated street corners refers to not just some side street, but a wide boulevard where there were lots of people, a busy intersection. You know, the Jews prayed at 9 and 12 and 3 in the afternoon. And many times they might find themselves in the middle of the street at 9, 12, or 3. If you find yourself in the middle of a busy street, you ought to pray.
Pray as quickly as you can. Nothing wrong with that, Jesus said. Now what was the problem? It wasn't their location in praying, it was their motivation in praying.
Why did they do this? Look, in order that they might be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their rewards in full. Now Jesus said, when you pray, look at verse 6, this is how you're to do it. But when you pray, go into your inner room, close your room, and pray to your Father who is in secret.
And your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. You know, people ask me sometime, Pastor, why don't you pray a pastoral prayer every Sunday? Why don't you stand up and pray a pastoral prayer like many pastors do? They work and work all the week on their pastoral prayer. They say to me, Pastor, we would just love to hear our pastor pray every week.
That's exactly why I don't do it. Prayer is not about you hearing me, it's about God hearing me. It doesn't mean I never pray in public, but that's not the time to develop intimacy with God. Somebody said our prayer life is like an iceberg. You know, these massive icebergs like the one that sunk the Titanic floating around in the Atlantic Ocean, as massive as those icebergs are, realize only one-ninth of an iceberg is above the water visible to the human eye.
Eight-ninths of an iceberg are below the surface of the water. And people said our prayer life ought to be that way. One-ninth ought to be visible for other people to see, but the majority of it, eight-ninths of it, ought to be beyond human view.
D.L. Moody said it this way, he said, keep your public prayers short and your private prayers long. Guard against hypocrisy. You're not playing a part to show how spiritual you are when you pray. And secondly, notice what he says, guard against ritualism.
Guard against ritualism. William Barclay notes that the Jews had 18 different prayers that they would pray by rote according to the particular situation. I think that's what Jesus had in mind in verses seven and eight when he said, 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.
So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. This word translated meaningless repetition literally is the word babble. How do the Gentiles pray? They babble. They use spiritual mumbo jumbo when they pray. They think if they can pray long enough and loud enough, somehow they're going to make God listen and answer their request. A lot of people today pray that way. The Buddhists, for example, spin wheels containing written prayers, thinking that's how prayer will be answered. Other faiths light candles, thinking that lighting the candles causes your prayers to ascend before the face and the ears of God. Other people, Christians, chant words over and over again, or they pray as long as they can, thinking if they just pray long enough, maybe God will answer.
Jesus said don't do that. Don't pray like the Gentiles pray with meaningless repetition. A prayer doesn't have to be long to be effective, okay? In fact, some of the most effective prayers in the Bible were some of the shortest. In 1 Kings 3, Solomon prayed for wisdom, and God gave him that wisdom. Remember the story Jesus told about the two men who went up to the temple to pray? One was a Pharisee.
He beat his chest. He spent most of his prayer time telling God how righteous he was. But then the tax gatherers stood up to pray. He prayed one sentence, Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. Jesus said which one, which prayer do you think God heard? Or the shortest prayer in the Bible. Peter, remember his story? He was sinking in the water, about to drown. He prayed one prayer, three words, Lord, save me.
And Jesus saved him. What Jesus is saying here is guard against ritualism in your prayer. It's not the length of your prayer. It's not how loud your prayer is.
It is not the words you use. No, Jesus is looking at your motivation. He's looking at your heart. Now in contrast, beginning in verse 9, Jesus talks about how to pray. He said instead of praying like the Gentiles pray, pray in this way. Notice he never said pray this prayer. Nowhere were we ever commanded to pray this prayer that we know as the Lord's Prayer. Jesus never meant for this prayer to be used like so many churches use it, as a mantra that is repeated. It was never meant as a mantra to be repeated, but as a model to be followed. Isn't it interesting that search through the New Testament never once do you find the apostles praying this prayer?
No writer of the New Testament ever mentions this prayer. Jesus was telling us how to pray. We've been talking about it in verses 5 to 8, how not to pray, how to guard against the things that will corrupt your conversations with God. How do you guard against hypocrisy? How do you guard against ritualism in your prayer?
Three suggestions. Number one, begin and end every day in prayer. Don't fall into the trap of thinking unless you can devote an hour or two to prayer, but there's no use in praying.
That's a subtle trap in many Christians. They read stories about Martin Luther and others who, you know, prayed three or four hours in the morning before they ever went to work, and we think, gee, you know, I'm doing good to find five or ten minutes to pray, and if I can't pray like that, why even pray? No, even if you can't devote long portions of time in a day to prayer, you can at least begin and end every day in prayer. For example, in the morning when you awaken, before your feet get out of bed and touch the ground, spend a few moments talking to God, asking God to guide you throughout the day, give you wisdom, use whatever encounters you have in that day for His glory, pray for your family. You can do that right before you ever get up in the morning. And then at night, before you drift off to sleep, make the last thing you do to be having a conversation with God, reviewing the good things that happen in the day, asking God to protect you and your family throughout the night.
I think this is what C.S. Lewis had in mind when he wrote, the moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals, and the first job of each morning consists in shoving them all back, in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. Perhaps that's what the psalmist had in mind when he wrote in Psalm 5-3, every morning I will tell you what I need and I wait for your answer. Suggestion number two, to guard against ritualism and hypocrisy, write out or vocalize your prayers. Vocalize or even write out your prayers. Have you ever had this happen?
I've had it happen to me. I'll be praying in my mind, talking to God, and as I'm praying, suddenly I begin thinking about the agenda for staff meeting on Tuesday. I want to remember to write something down. Or I think about an argument I had with somebody the hour before. Or I think about something that I need to be doing, and pretty soon my attention has been divided. I'm still praying in my mind, but I'm also thinking about something else, and pretty soon I start falling into those spiritual banalities in my prayer. Bless this, bless that, bless, bless, bless, bless. Have you ever tried praying without saying the word bless?
Try it sometimes. Pretty soon you're just going through the most, and bless this, bless this, or other things. Lead, guide, and direct, oh Father.
Can somebody tell me the difference between lead, guide, and direct? It's part of that theological mumbo jumbo that we've grown accustomed to, and we find ourself praying that way because we've lost our focus. You know what? While we're praying those kind of prayers, God's in heaven looking at His watch.
When is this guy going to get through? I mean that kind of prayer bores God a lot more than it bores you. Don't even waste your breath. How do you keep from dividing your attention and remaining focused? One way I've found is to actually vocalize your prayers. If you're alone, don't just think the prayer, actually speak it out loud.
It'll have a way of keeping you focused. Even better, write out your prayers. Just imagine you received an invitation to go into the Oval Office and spend 10 minutes with the President of the United States. Ten minutes with the President. Do you think you might think through what you were going to say to him before you got in there?
Think so? If you had 10 minutes to talk to him about any subject you wanted to talk to him about, make any request you wanted to make, don't you think you might jot down a few notes before you went in there? Think about this. When we pray, we are going into the throne room of heaven itself to talk to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Thomas Kelly writes, There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at the same time. On one level we can be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting the demands of life, but deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship, and a gentle receptivity to divine breathings. That's the essence of what real prayer is. Prayer is not some theological formula to reach a distant deity who may or may not be there. Instead, prayer is an intimate conversation covering every detail of your life with the one who truly loves you the very most. John Bunyan said this, Now that's the kind of prayer that really works.
What could be more important than maximizing your daily appointment with the Creator of the universe? I'm looking forward to teaching you practical principles from the Bible about your conversations with the living God in this new series on Pathway to Victory. Now, earlier I made reference to a new book that my daughter Julia Jeffress Sadler has written for your children on this topic of prayer.
It's fully illustrated and meant to engage your child's imagination on the power of prayer. And Julia's new book gives you a tool so that you can sit down and read with a child you love. Her new book is called You Can Pray Big Things. Listen, if you make just one monumental change in your life, then I challenge you to pray and to pray big.
And now you can walk alongside your child and help them to do the same. Ask for Julia's illustrated book for children called You Can Pray Big Things. It's yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. In fact, because your gift is so appreciated, I'm going to include Julia's bestselling book for adults called Pray Big Things. Julia wrote this book in a season of waiting, suffering, and disappointment. Praying unleashed a season of God's blessing in her life.
I want you to have both of her books today. The one for children, You Can Pray Big Things, and the one for you. Both are yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Now, in addition to receiving these resources, you can also enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that God is using your generosity to touch lives. And it's because of the faithful and generous support of grateful listeners just like you.
Thank you so much for your continued faithfulness. David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request a copy of Julia Jeffress Sadler's brand new children's book, You Can Pray Big Things. Plus, you'll also receive Julia's bestselling book for adults, Pray Big Things. To request the two books, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. And when your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you this month's teaching series, Prayers That Really Work, on both CD and DVD.
Perfect for watching at home or listening in your car. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. Now, if you'd prefer to write, here's that mailing address, P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
I'm David J. Mullins. Many of us remember memorizing the Lord's Prayer in Sunday School. But the Lord's Prayer isn't a poem that's simply to be learned by rote. It's God's instruction manual for powerful and effective prayer. Learn God's pattern for prayer. That's Thursday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.
