What Jesus Thinks About Prayer #3

How do you pray? You say, okay, I embrace that.

I see that as the desire of my heart. How then do I pray when I bring requests to God? How do I pray? What is it that I ask him for? Jesus has plenty to say about prayer, and we're paying attention to that again today on the Truth Pulpit.

Hi, I'm Bill Wright. Pastor Don Green is taking us further into a series titled, What Jesus Thinks About Prayer. So far, we've covered what it means to purify your motives in prayer.

We must not pray to please men. Rather, we must please God. In Matthew 6, our Lord also tells us we must purify our practice of prayer.

As Don will show you today, there are some dos and don'ts involved. So open your Bible and let's join Don Green right now in the Truth Pulpit. Matthew 6 is where we're at. Matthew chapter 6, I invite you to turn there. We were talking about how we pray. I want to pray well, don't you? I want to transcend the mediocrity that has marked so much of my Christian praying over the past years of my Christian life. I know that you do too. Even just this morning, earlier this morning, someone stopped me and said, Why is it that when I'm in a prayer group, I can pray so much better than when I do in private?

I think we all know something about that. If you've ever been in a prayer group, you have a way of turning it on. When you're with other people, some of us anyway, we can get pretty good and sound really good. But if you were to tape that and then play it against a tape of how you pray in private, a lot of us would see there's a gap there and there's an inconsistency there. That's frustrating for those of us that want to honor God with our praying. So all of that to say that today's message is designed to strengthen us, strengthen you, and strengthen me in the true knowledge of prayer and to help us know how to approach prayer in an effective way. And so we come to the teaching of Jesus Christ to help us bridge the gap between what we profess about prayer, because all of us would say, Prayer is important. Yes, we need to pray and prayer is important. Prayer is the nerve that moves the muscle of God.

We would all say that kind of stuff at one level or another. But look, we know the truth of the matter is that we fall short in prayer. And we want what we profess to be more of what we possess, for it to be a reality in our lives, something that when we go to God and get alone with God, we know how to pray. And we pray that way because our hearts are drawn toward the one who saved us, who set his eternal love upon us and is going to bring us to glory.

Our hearts are drawn to him, and so we want to know how to pray well and to pray in a way that is consistent with what he has instructed. And Jesus in this passage in Matthew 6 has really laid it out for us in pretty clear, compelling, and concise ways for us to grasp. Look at chapter 6, verse 5 in Matthew. Jesus says, 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. 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. Those are the two verses that we looked at last time. And basically what we said from these two verses is that we need to examine ourselves.

We need to consider, we need to reflect on our practice of prayer and purify our motives in prayer. Jesus is addressing the motives for which we pray, and he tells us that when you go through the motions of prayer simply to be noticed by men, simply so that men would praise you, acknowledge you, applaud you for being a good prayer or a good Christian person. When you're going through Christian life trying to call attention to your religious devotion so that men will acknowledge you, Jesus says that's it.

That's the reward that you get. There's nothing pleasing to God about that. If your aim is to have men praise you, and they praise you, they say, wow, that was some prayer you prayed in prayer group last week. You know, I love it when you pray in Bible study, and that's what you're aiming at, and then people praise you for it, Jesus says you have your reward. There's no eternal significance. There's no blessing of God on us when we pray that way.

He says that's as good as it gets. You wanted the praise of men, you got the praise of men. And we said that when you compare that to having the power of God at work in your life and having God pleased with you and having God reward you, you realize that, you know, that's so empty. It's so empty, and I would venture to say that for many of you, you look at your prayer life and you say, oh, it's so empty.

I want it to be so much more, but it's just empty. Well, Jesus is teaching to help us overcome that and to make it fruitful and meaningful, and that's why we're looking at this. Jesus switches over to the positive in verse 6, and he says here's how you start. Here's where you begin to purify your motives in prayer. He says in verse 6, go into your inner room, close your door, pray to your Father who is in secret. Get alone with God.

And we recognize that there's, for some of us, that's a logistical difficulty if you've got a lot of little kids running around or something. But somehow in your mind, if you're able to geographically to get alone with God, even if you're just picking up a few minutes here and there, to focus on that private devotion to God. Men can't praise you when they can't see you, and so when you take the conscious effort to separate yourself and to get alone, even if you're just going into a little closet for a short time, just so that you can be alone with God, Jesus says that has a favor of God upon it.

As you seek that kind of privacy, you're showing that you're seeking the approval of your Father. Lord, let me get alone someplace where no one can see me so that I am sure that no one will praise me for it, and therefore I won't have mixed motives in why I'm praying to you. And he says, a direct promise to his disciples, he says when you pray privately, God is there in his omni presence in order to bless you. This is no empty exercise.

This is not going through the motions. And we begin to make our prayer lives meaningful. We begin to pray in a meaningful way when we get alone and when we are conscious of the blessing of God.

We're conscious that this is what he has ordered. This is what he has promised to bless. And you say, okay, now we're in a position to go somewhere with the way that we pray. And so when you remember God's presence, when you remember God's love toward his children, when you remember his intention to bless, prayer turns away from being a duty to be fulfilled into a delight that you want to pursue.

That's a basic summary of what we talked about last time. Purify your motives in prayer. Now, moving on to today's portion of that. Second point, if you will, is that we want to purify our practice of prayer. Purify your practice of prayer. And that's what we're going to look at in the next two verses, verses seven and eight.

Look at them with me, if you will. This is so practical and helpful. And I trust that it's going to be very constructive for you as you seek to grow in your life of prayer before God. Jesus says, verse seven, 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. So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way, our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.

We'll just kind of stop there. Purify your practice in prayer. There's three things that I want to give you. Very, very practical, very useful things that you can take and put into practice today for the way that you pray. The first one is a negative what not to do. The following two after that are the positive things that you do want to pursue in prayer. So first of all, how do you purify your practice of prayer? First of all, understand that Jesus tells you to avoid meaningless repetition. Avoid meaningless repetition. He says in verse seven, 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.

When he says this meaningless repetition, he's referring to... The verb literally means to babble, but it really has the idea here of speaking without thinking. Speaking without thinking. You pray and you're saying words, but your mind is really running someplace else.

You're engaged in something else while you're saying words. Or you have a set pattern of prayer. You have words that you use over and over and over again.

Those of you that come from ritualistic backgrounds, come from Catholicism. You were taught to pray the same prayers over and over again. This is what Jesus was addressing and saying, Don't pray that way. Don't use the same words over and over. It just becomes repetition.

It's meaningless. You're not thinking about it as you pray. Ultimately, what Jesus is condemning here is a mechanical approach to prayer that is marked by thoughtless speech. Speaking that is not engaged with the character of God, that is not engaged with the Word of God, that goes through the motions and simply piles on prayer in the hope that God will somehow hear. He says they supposed to be heard in their many words there in verse 7. They suppose that they will be heard for their many words. He says the Gentiles, the pagans, pray and pray and pray, but it's meaningless. They think that a quantity of words is somehow going to badger God into doing what they want.

Jesus says they have it all wrong. It's not that sheer length will not cause God to answer you. God doesn't answer thoughtless prayers, and so don't pray that way.

I'll leave it to you to examine your own heart on where you line up with that. Before you enter into the presence of God to pray, whether you're stopping thinking about what you're doing. I'm approaching the Holy One of the universe. I am approaching the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ who sent him to be the Savior of the world. I'm approaching one who sees and hears, who knows my heart. One who rebukes my sin and yet promises to bless me when I confess and seek him. And so I need to take this seriously.

I need to sober up as it were. I need to address him as an intelligent person who is interacting with me, who is hearing me. When I preached on this passage a few years ago, I gave the hypothetical example of how irritating it would be if you had a person in your life who said the same thing to you every time they saw you. Every time they saw you, they just mechanically said, Hello Ralph, it's good to see you. How are you? I'm fine. Have a good day.

Next day, same thing. Hello Ralph, it's good to see you. How are you? I'm fine. Have a good day. Wednesday, how are you Ralph?

Good to see you. Have a good day. That would drive you nuts. You would detest that kind of relationship. You say, here he comes again. Well, understand that on an infinitely greater scale, the God who knows all, the God who knows every word on your tongue before you speak it is not interested in that kind of engagement from you in prayer. Understand that that is an insult to his intelligence. It's an insult to his holiness. It's an insult to the Spirit of God that searches our hearts and knows all things. We can't go through prayer like that. That's an insult to God to pray with meaningless repetition in a mechanical way. And so don't get the thought in your mind that, you know, if I just pray for 30 minutes or 45 minutes or 15 minutes or whatever your standard of greatness is in prayer, don't get the sense that time means anything when you pray because if it's just babbling, thoughtless words that you're saying over and over again, it doesn't matter.

Get this. Jesus sets up many words in prayer as a bad example. This is really searching, but it's right there on the surface of Scripture. Jesus says, look at verse 7 with me again. He says, Do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. There are many words.

Words, quantity of words in and of itself means nothing. And Jesus was not the first person in the Bible to say this. In Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 2, King Solomon said, Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God.

For God is in heaven and you are on the earth. Therefore, let your words be few. Let your words be few.

Before you go in and just start flapping your tongue, step back and stop and think about what you're doing. Let an economy of words, in many cases, an economy of words would be an expression of taking prayer more seriously than simply multiplying the things that you've been saying all along. This is very challenging, but it's also very helpful. Now understand this. Understand this. You walk on a razor's edge on some of these biblical themes and it's so easy to be misunderstood. Understand that repetition per se is not the problem. Making the same prayer request again and again by itself is not a problem. Jesus and the Apostle Paul both repeated some of their prayers.

That's recorded for us in scriptures. The problem is not repeating prayers. Since the day my children were born, I've been praying for their salvation day after day after day after day. The Lord has seen fit to honor that prayer and answer that prayer for many of them and I thank him for that. But the repetition in that was not driven by a mechanical, meaningless thing.

That's the desire of my heart is to see my children know Christ. And so when your repetition is driven by a heart motivation, a heart animation that says, God, this is really important. I know I said this yesterday.

I know I said it three hours ago, but I'm bringing it to you again. That's different from the mindless, thoughtless repetition that we're so easily drawn into when we pray. It's when you're speaking words of prayer while your mind is thinking about something else that you need to be on guard for.

Saying things without thinking about them. That's the problem. That's what makes it meaningless. And that's what Jesus calls our attention to. You see, when you're praying, it is designed to be thoughtful words addressed to the God of the Bible. Running through your prayer list when your heart is not engaged is a problem. That's not a right way to pray. That's a wrong use of a prayer list. If you're simply just running through, mindlessly going through it, that is the wrong way to pray. That is meaningless repetition. Jesus says the blessing of God is not upon that.

And as I've come to understand this and embrace it more and more over the prior years, I've been so glad for this. Because it just releases you from that sense of guilt and obligation that some list tends to put upon you. Again, it's not that the prayer list is the problem. It's what it produces in your heart and makes you think simply going through the motion is actually real prayer when it's not. God does not want long prayers simply for the sake of long prayers. And so we're left with the question, okay, what does he want then? Okay, if that's not it, what does he want? If it's not meaningless repetition, if it's not the same thing over and over, if he doesn't want the rituals that I was taught as a kid, what is it that he wants then? Tell me, Jesus, tell me how to pray then in a way that honors God and engages the affections of my heart.

That's what I want to know. He does that. Jesus gives us that. In the second point for today's message, you avoid meaningless repetition. On a positive side, second point here, aim for simplicity.

Aim for simplicity. Look at what Jesus says in verse 8. So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

He says, I've been talking to you about these Gentiles who multiply words in prayer. By contrast, what do I want from you? Don't be like that. Contrast that.

Forget about the multiplicity of words. It's not like you need to inform God about your situation because he knows what you need before you ask. You can skip over all of that if you want to.

You don't have to help him with the facts. He knows your needs. He knows how to meet them. He's promised to reward you when you pray. And so that greatly simplifies everything. Now, understanding the way Jesus teaches on prayer, understanding how God the Father views prayer, enables you to pray clearly, to pray simply, and then to trust God to bless you. Many of the great prayers of the Bible were extremely short. If you go through and calculate this, 78 of the 150 Psalms in the Old Testament are 12 verses or less.

You can go through those in 90 seconds, 60 seconds. And yet, in their brevity, God saw fit to include them in the canon of Scripture as being a model for us on how to pray. Look at some of the great prayers of men in the Bible in the Old and New Testament. Moses, in Exodus chapter 32, speaking to God, said, I pray you, show me your glory. The simplicity of that.

And yet, think about what that says about his heart. I want to know you. I want to see your glory.

So show it to me. You can't get to that kind of heart through a lot of ritualistic prayer. The dying thief on the cross looking over at the placard that was above Jesus. This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. And seeing how Jesus was dying on the cross, hearing him speak in his seven sayings on the cross, the dying thief looked at him and said, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.

The power of that prayer. Jesus, I believe the testimony that you are the King of the Jews. I believe that you are a king. I believe that your kingdom is yet to come. I just ask you, Lord, remember me when you enter into your kingdom. Would you have grace and mercy on me when you enter in? All of that heartfelt affection, all of that motivation wrapped up in the simple words, Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.

He didn't need to discourse for 30 minutes about it. In 15 seconds, he expressed a prayer of eternal worth. I say this to encourage you, beloved.

I say this to encourage you. It's not long prayers per se that are pleasing to God. And to see that even thoughtful, short prayers are worthy. The Apostle John, at the end of the Bible, at the close of the book of Revelation, simply prays, Come, Lord Jesus.

Come, Lord Jesus. Aiming for simplicity. What I want you to see from all of that is that this doesn't have to be complicated. All of the wonderful books that have been written on prayer and the many sermons that have been written on prayer, I just have a burning concern for the people in Grace Life that all of that would make you think that there's a complex structure to this that has to be met. And by the power of the Scriptures, I want to liberate you from that. Unshackle your heart from those kinds of expectations so that you would pray clearly, pray simply, and realize that kind of thoughtful prayer, engaged with the character of God, interacting with the Word of God, is acceptable to God. God will bless your simple, private prayers.

Your responsibility is to honor His love and His wisdom with a thoughtful approach to prayer that is worthy of the living person to whom you pray. Engage your mind. Think about what you're doing. Reflect on the character of God.

Think about what you're asking Him for. We have a tendency to focus on our physical circumstances in their different manifestations, but man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. You see, for a lot of you, it's probably not that you need to pray longer and try harder at what you're already doing.

Some of you need to recalculate your whole approach to prayer. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, with more of a message titled, What Jesus Thinks About Prayer. Don will wrap up the series on our next broadcast, so join us then here on the Truth Pulpit.

Right now, though, Don's back here in studio with news of a great resource. Well, my friend, as we bring today's broadcast to a close, I want to offer you a very special gift, a special resource as a gift from our ministry. It's my series called, Trusting God in Trying Times, and this series over the years has proven to be the most popular set of messages that I've ever done. It helps you know how to trust God as you're going through the deep sorrows that sometimes come to us in life. It comes from the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament, and it comes from some very deep sorrows of my own that were present early in my Christian life. It's very personal, it's very helpful, it's very biblical, and I would love to see you have it in your hands.

It's available in CD album or by download. Transcripts are available if you prefer that. My friend Bill is going to give you information on how to find it. Just visit our website at thetruthpulpit.com to get the resource Don just mentioned. I'm Bill Wright and we'll see you next time for more from the Truth Pulpit.