Righteous Praying #1a

I want to start out today looking at some of the general biblical teaching on prayer, just to kind of set the stage for what Jesus says in Matthew 6, and then we'll go into the passage in more detail. What if a reporter were to ask you if your prayer life is satisfying?

How would you respond? Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and today Pastor Don Green continues teaching God's people God's Word here on the Truth Pulpit. Don is beginning a new series titled, Lord, Teach Us to Pray.

And Don, what's ahead for us in this series? Well, my friend, I'm very excited to open this new series from what's called the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6. You know, our gracious Lord understands that we don't know how to pray, and we don't know what we should pray for. And He gives us clarity for a lifetime of spiritual growth in these simple and familiar words. Open your Bible to Matthew 6 and join us as we study God's Word today here on the Truth Pulpit. Thanks, Don. And friend, you won't want to miss a minute as our teacher unpacks what righteous prayer is all about from Matthew chapter 6, starting with verse 5. So let's join Don right now in the Truth Pulpit. The two dangers about speaking about prayer come to my mind when I address an audience that considers itself to be well-taught—two dangers that I want to lay out before you.

This is still just by way of introduction. These aren't the only dangers of talking about prayer. There are others, but for those of us in Grace Life, these are the two that I would call to your attention just to start to stimulate your thinking about what we're going to see from the Lord's words here today. First danger that I would say is the danger of unintentional self-deception. Unintentional self-deception. Our general familiarity with the biblical teaching on prayer can deceive us. I say this without fear of contradiction. Our general familiarity with the teaching on prayer can deceive us. Number one, it can deceive us into thinking that we actually pray more and pray better than we actually do.

The fact that we can quote a few verses on prayer and we can affirm the importance of it and maybe we pray before our meals make us think that we pray more and we pray better than we actually do. We're unintentionally deceived. Self-deceived. We grade ourselves higher than what is warranted. Unintentional self-deception could also lead to another result.

This is still the first danger and still by way of introduction. That general familiarity with prayer, general familiarity with the teaching of the Bible, and a general hanging out with other Christians can insulate you and me from a conviction over our own prayerlessness. We're so insulated from it, we're so inoculated that we're not even cognizant of the fact that we don't pray at all like we should.

In either event, either thinking that we pray more than we actually do or we're just insulated from a conviction over our own prayerlessness, we're unintentionally deceived, self-deceived, and we mislead ourselves into thinking that knowing teaching about prayer is the same thing as actually praying well. We've got to sweep that aside. We've got to put that self-deception away. We think we're okay when we're really not. That's unintentional self-deception. There's a second danger.

The second danger goes to the other extreme, and that's this. It's that you fall into despair because you know that your prayer life is inadequate. And day by day, time after time, you're convicted and you say, I know I don't pray like I should, I've got to pray different, and you go on and on like that. You know that you should pray with greater passion, greater intensity, greater faithfulness, but you realize that you fall short. What true Christian among us hasn't at some point been discouraged by their inadequate prayer life?

I would venture to say not many, although you can't take really accurate statistics about that point. Now to be sure, there are some Christians that enjoy a vibrant prayer life. I know some of you are like that, and I thank God for that. Thank God that there are some that have tapped into that. But I can't help but feel that they're in the minority.

I won't justify that statement beyond saying that that's my assessment of the situation. The people, the Christians, particularly within our body here that enjoy a vibrant prayer life, are probably in the minority. The rest of us fall into that other camp.

Well, wherever you fall on that continuum, either unintentionally self-deceived and congratulating yourself for something that isn't really true about your life, or recognizing the reality and saying, I'm so tired of this. Somewhere on that continuum, wherever you fall, I trust that what we're going to study together today will stimulate you to a deeper intimacy with God in prayer. Now I realize, and you don't know how many times I had recycling in my mind as I was preparing this, how many sermons on prayer have I heard in my years as a Christian? How many sermons on prayer have you heard?

How many books have you read? But this is where the Lord has brought us in His teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. And what I want to say is this, I think that you may be surprised by what the Lord teaches on prayer here in Matthew 6. I think it can help you right where you're at in your prayer life, even if you are laying on the floor absolutely discouraged and say, I have never prayed right and I doubt if I ever will.

If that is you, beloved, I've got great words of hope and encouragement for you. What I want to do is this, I want to start out today looking at some of the general biblical teaching on prayer, just to kind of set the stage for what Jesus says in Matthew 6, and then we'll go into the passage in more detail. But basically, there's three things about prayer that I want you to see.

I want you to stimulate your thinking on. We kind of need to get our hands into the dirt, as it were, and kind of work things out, get things clear in our minds again. I'd start with this first biblical principle and that is, number one, the call to prayer. The biblical call to prayer. And all I'm going to do right now is just give you several verses from the New Testament and let you see how pervasive the biblical call the biblical mandate to prayer is. I was frankly surprised as I saw how widespread and how pervasive this is throughout the New Testament.

And when you start to see that, it starts to have an impact on your mind and on your heart. And you say, God places a priority on this. God places a priority on prayer. And beloved, hear me on this, if we say, and we do, we say that we believe the Bible, we say that we're committed to obeying the Scriptures, that we want to be biblical in our approach, then what the Bible has to say about prayer has to kind of stop us in our tracks and we have to take stock of ourselves.

This isn't a one-time theme. Just jot these verses down in and I'll read them to you. In Romans 12, verse 12, Romans 12, verse 12, the Apostle Paul said, be devoted to prayer. In Ephesians 6, 18, that same apostle said, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. That's Ephesians 6, 18.

What I want you to do is just jot these down and go home and look them up and let your eyes fall on the page. Let it sink into you how much God talks about this. Philippians 4, verse 6, Philippians 4, verse 6, familiar verse where Paul says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4, 6. Colossians 4, 2, devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. Maybe the Lord would bless us and the Spirit would call that verse to mind when we start to drift off into sleep when we're praying, huh?

Keep alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. First Thessalonians 5, 17, pray without ceasing. First Timothy 2, verse 8, I want the men in every place to pray. Number 7 on the list, Hebrews 13, verse 18, pray for us. James 5, 16, pray for one another.

And the last one, I could have chosen others, but not to belabor the point. First Peter 4, verse 7, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. That was 1 Peter 4, 7. Beloved, multiple New Testament writers in multiple New Testament books emphasized the importance of being devoted to prayer, of being of sound judgment, of being of sober spirit, of being alert in prayer. Pay attention in prayer, the Scriptures say.

Pray continually. Pray as a habit of life. And we could expand this topic even more and exponentially multiply all of this emphasis, this call to prayer, if we considered the New Testament Gospels or the Old Testament and looked at the Psalms and looked at other places, but I think the point is clear enough. Over and over again, the Bible impresses upon you as a believer in Jesus Christ to be a man, to be a woman of prayer. We praise God, we confess our sins, we give thanks, we make requests both for ourselves and for one another, we honor him, we worship him, we pray. We pray. Now, here's the challenge for someone who teaches an audience that considers itself to be well-taught, and I welcome that challenge, but it is a challenge. I haven't told most of you anything that you haven't already heard a thousand times before. That may seem, this call to prayer and emphasizing that, may seem to you to be very basic, and perhaps it is, but beloved, hear me, sometimes, sometimes we have to get back to the very foundational basics to get our spiritual lives back on track and say the Bible is clear on this.

The call on my life is clear on this. Vince Lombardi was a famous coach of the Green Bay Packers football team during the 1960s. He won five championships with them in nine years, and at one point the team had not been playing well. And so he called a team meeting, and with 50 or more professional football players in front of him, people who played football for a living, people who were the champions at their profession, he told them that they needed to get back to basics. He took a football, and he held it up in the air, and he said, gentlemen, this is a football.

Now think about that. This is a football. The players could have said, well, of course we know that. Max McGee, one of the wide receivers for the team, said slow down, coach, you're going too fast for me. But in his wisdom as a football coach, Vince Lombardi was saying, let's go right back to the very start and start from there. Beloved, that's what I'm saying to you today as we talk about prayer.

This is a football. This is foundational. This is fundamental. And beloved, let that basic fundamental about your Christian life sink into your mind with a fresh vigor and a fresh conviction today. God repeatedly calls you to pray in the Bible.

He commands it. And for you as a Christian who say, I believe the Bible, I want to obey the Bible, I've submitted my life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, that means that you need to take your prayer life seriously and not let it disintegrate or better yet maybe dissipate simply because you don't pay attention to it, because you're assuming things about yourself that aren't really true about what a good prayer you are. Beloved, the fact that you know about the call to pray does not mean you are fulfilling it.

Can we agree on that? The fact that you know it doesn't mean that you are doing it. Answer these questions in your heart. When is it that you pray? How much do you pray?

Are your prayers routine or passionate? You see, the Bible emphasizes all of this far too much for us to simply assume that we're meeting our obligation. Prayer is fundamental, preacher. Move on to something else. Move on to something more theological. No, no, no.

I'm gonna stand here and say this is a football. This is basic, and I don't want to assume the basics as you sit before me here today. Let every man, let every woman, let every child examine himself in light of what the Bible says about the clear call to pray. Take stock and be honest before Christ as you do. Now, with that said, with the call to pray firmly in your mind, I want to consider a second point with you. A second point, having seen the call to prayer laid out before us, I want to look at point number two, the examples of prayer. The examples of prayer, to see people actually praying in the Bible to have this make an effect on us. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 14. I'm going to kind of run you through some scriptures here as we look at the Lord Jesus Christ himself in prayer. The Lord Jesus Christ himself in prayer. It's a provocative topic, Jesus in prayer.

I don't claim to understand it at all. The son of God communing in prayer with the Father. What a great mystery. But Matthew 14, verse 22, Jesus had just fed 5,000 people with a few little loaves. And in verse 22, it says, immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he sent the crowds away. Verse 23, after he had sent the crowds away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.

And when it was evening, he was there alone. He was on the mountain praying. After a long day of work, a long day of ministry, the Lord Jesus slipped away by himself to pray. Turn to the book of Mark chapter 1. I want you to see these verses, and so you can nimble your fingers.

If I can turn nimble into a verb, I think I can do that. Mark chapter 1, verse 35. Still hear some pages wrestling, that's okay. In verse 35, it says, in the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there. Once again, you see the Lord getting away by himself to pray.

This is the pattern of the one you call Lord, the pattern of the one that you call Savior. In Luke chapter 5, in Luke chapter 5, now we're going to look at a few verses in Luke that'll make it a little easier to follow along with me. Luke 5 16, striking how the Gospel writers focused on this aspect of the life of Christ. Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. Luke chapter 6 verse 12.

I'm just reading the Bible to you at this point, I'm not even commenting on it. Luke 6 verse 12, it was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray, and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. Luke 9 28, I'm skipping over others. Luke 9 28, as we look at some examples of prayer in the Bible, Dr. Luke tells us, some eight days after these sayings, he took along Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. You'll recall, beloved, that when he was in Gethsemane, on the verge of being crucified, he prayed three times, Lord if it's possible, take this cup away from me.

Praying repeatedly, praying fervently, the Bible says, so much so that his sweat became like drops of blood. On the cross our Lord prayed. Look at Luke 23, Luke chapter 23. By the way, if you're jotting these down, the Gethsemane thing you can read about in Matthew 26, beginning at verse 36. Luke 23 verse 34, nailed to a cross to die for your sins, Jesus says in verse 34 about those who were killing him.

Verse 34, but Jesus was saying, Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. He prayed even on the cross and slipped down to verse 46. This is the last one from the life of Jesus that I want to show you. At the moment of death, in verse 46, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said, Father into your hands I commit my spirit.

Having said this, he breathed his last. What a great way for us to go out of this world with a prayer on our lips, prayer of dependence, a prayer of trust. Father into thy hands I commit my spirit. But here's the point of all of that, beloved, and I debated on whether to just read those verses to you or not, but I know the impact that they had on my own heart as I went through them.

There are other examples we could look at, but here's what I want you to see. In addition to the general call to prayer that you see in the epistles to you, the gospel writers emphasized the Lord's prayer life. And as we look at those and as you go back and read through these verses again when you have a little more time, you'll see that the Lord Jesus Christ had a diversity in his prayer life, and I really want you to think about this. There was a diversity in his prayer life. We tend to get so narrow-focused that we say, well this time in the morning is my prayer time, or whatever, whatever it is.

We narrow prayer down to a particular time at a particular place, and we say that's where I pray, and then you kind of forget about it elsewhere. Understand that in the Lord Jesus, we see prayer permeating his life, a diversity of the way that he prayed. He prayed in the morning, and he prayed in the evening. He prayed long prayers. He prayed short prayers.

He rejoiced in prayer, and he groaned in prayer. He prayed alone, and he prayed with others. He prayed in life, and he prayed in death. He prayed things once. He prayed things multiple times. And throughout that example, we see the inner compulsion that the sinless Son of God felt to pray. And the question's been asked by better men than me. If Jesus needed to pray, wanted to pray, the sinless Son of God devoted himself to prayer, then how much more us and you?

How much more? And yet the truth be told, it's completely reversed around, isn't it? So we see Jesus in prayer as the example to pray. Well we have the incredible privilege to communicate with the Creator of the universe anytime, anywhere. And however satisfied we are with our personal prayer life, Jesus stands there waiting with mercy and grace, wanting to go even deeper with us. Well there's more opportunity to do just that, as Pastor Don Green will continue our current series titled Lord Teach Us to Pray next time here on The Truth Pulpit, and we hope you'll join us then.

Right now though, Don's back here in studio with some closing words. Hi friend, let me give you just a closing word of encouragement as we wrap up today's broadcast. I know that many of you have found us for the first time on Christian radio and that's wonderful, but I also realize that sometimes your schedules don't let you work around the broadcast schedule. We have made it possible for you to be able to still get The Truth Pulpit on a regular basis. We have a broadcast of each radio broadcast that you can find, and you can have it automatically delivered to your favorite listening device. If you go to our website, you can find a link to the podcast, sign up for it, and be sure to catch every episode. Here's Bill to help you find it. Thanks Don. And now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright, inviting you back next time when our teacher continues teaching God's people God's Word from The Truth Pulpit.