How Kingdom People Pray (Jake Enns)

You may be seated. Our sermon title this morning is

How Kingdom people Pray and a Saint of old called Teresa of

Avila. She wrote this.

She said prayers, nothing else then an intimate sharing between

friends. It means taking time frequently

to be with Him who we know loves us.

Is prayer optional, as in, does it matter?

How often should we pray? If it does matter, or what

should our prayers consist of? How long should they be?

These and many other questions that people wonder about could

be asked. But even though these questions

may be real on the matter of prayer, they're not the heart of

the matter. In short, prayer is connecting

with God by being with God, talking and listening to God and

listening from Him. It happens in the context of

relationship. Prayer is a very key and

important part of the Christian's life.

Without prayer, we cannot connect with God.

Prayer has been studied, written about, taught about, preached

on, and it'll continue. True prayer and relationship

cannot be separated in relationships, in good

friendships. That's the place where people

let down the guard, the fears melt, the walls disappear,

respect goes up, trust deepens, commitment and surrender invade

the whole atmosphere. I read something this last week

about friendships that caught my eye and I copied it and I want

to share that here this morning before we dig into the passage

itself, that we want to speak on Matthew chapter 6, verse one and

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

on written by a man. This article is written by a man

named Frederick Beechner many years ago, and just let me share

this here. He said friends are people you

make part of your life just because you feel like it.

There are lots of other ways people get to be part of each

other's lives, like being related to each other, living

near each other, sharing some special passion or interest with

each other, and so on. But though all of that may be

involved in a friendship, those things are secondary to the

friendship if it's a real friendship, he says.

Basically, your friends, meaning true friends, are not your

friends for any particular reason.

They're your friends, not because of the job you do, the

family you have, the way you vote, the major achievements and

blunders of your life, your religious convictions or lack of

them. Those things are real, but

they're all somehow set off to one side when the two of you get

together. If you're old friends, you know

all these things about each other, and a lot more besides.

But those things are beside the point even if you talk about

them. Those things, they're beside the

point in a friendship, humanly speaking, when stripped of its

bare essentials. You are the point, and your

friend is the point. The usual distinctions of older,

younger, richer, poorer, smarter, Dumber, male, female

even cease to matter. You meet with a clean slate

every time on equal terms and anything may come of it or

nothing may come of it. Doesn't matter.

Only the meeting matters. I'm a very blessed man to be

able to every, not every, but most Friday mornings at 6:00 AM

to meet with my sons, three of our sons at Tim horton's.

We don't come with an agenda. The meeting is the point to just

shoot the breeze, just talk, just be there.

That's the point and that aligns with this.

Bickner then quotes the verse out of Exodus 33 verse 11 where

Exodus 33:11

it says so the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man

speaks to his friend. The words of the Bible.

Let's let this sit. Let this sit for a second.

There was a lot of prayer going on for Moses towards God.

He was listening a lot, but it was the relationship that

mattered. The book and and Bickner goes

on. He says in Isaiah 41 verse 8, it

Isaiah 41:8

says this, but you Israel are my servant Jacob, whom I have

chosen, the descendants of Abraham.

My friend Beacon writes, he said this is a staggering thought.

He continues the love of God, the mercy of God, the judgement

of God. He says you take your shoes off

your feet and you stand as you stand before this as a before a

mountain or the edge of the sea, but says, but then the

friendship of God, it's he said it's not something God does.

It's something Abraham and God or Moses and God do together.

And you may disagree with this, but let me just read this and

you can argue with me later on. He says not even God can be a

friend all by himself. Apparently in other words, to be

a friend, you need someone to be a friend too.

Abraham spending time with God, they simply being together,

being themselves. He asked the question, Is it a

privilege only for patriarchs? Not as far as Jesus concerned,

at least, he continues. You're my friends, Jesus says,

if you do what I command. The command, of course, is to

love one another, as he puts it, to be his friends.

That is to say, we have to be each other's friends,

conceivably even lay down our lives for each other.

It's a high price to pay, he says, and Jesus does not pretend

otherwise. I want to just let that sit for

a second and think about this, to be in friendship and

relationship with Jesus. And that happens in the context

of prayer. There's nothing on this earth

that's higher than that, deeper than that, more powerful than

that. There's no acting, no pretense

involved. And when talking about prayer,

it's important that we also know it takes many different forms.

It comes in many different ways. The Bible has an awful lot to

say on it. There's not only one kind of

prayer, one type of prayer, one style of prayer.

It can take many forms and expressions.

In our passage today, we'll find Jesus gives instructions to his

audience on the subject of prayer.

Not because they're not praying. They were praying.

They were praying an awful lot. Those people were and given

instructions how not to pray as well as how to pray and the

instructions that Jesus gives. They were instructions giving to

God fearing Jews. These people were not pig and

unbelievers. These Jewish listeners, they

would have been well familiar with the subject of prayer.

Oh yeah, yeah, we do it five times a day, that kind of thing.

I don't know exactly how often Jews pray, but they do pray in

rituals. Our relationship with God does

not exist for the sake of prayer.

The praying we do is the envelope in which the

relationship is carried. The relationship is the point.

In other words, physically, people don't live so they can

breathe. They breathe so they can live.

Breathing serves the purpose of living.

Prayer serves the purpose of sustaining and nurturing a

relationship with God. Breathing is to the body what

prayer is to the soul. Prayer is the pathway, the

channel through which we connect with God.

We do not worship prayer. In prayer, we worship God.

We pray because we desire God. We pray because we want to speak

to God. We pray because we want to hear

Him, but most importantly, want to be with Him.

So how now do we pray? Or rather the text says, how

should we not pray? In order to pray right now,

let's read our text. Matthew chapter 6, five to 18.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Matthew 65 to 18. Last time we talked about

giving, doing good. Well, here goes to prayer.

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they

love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the corners of

the streets, that they may be seen by men.

Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you've shut

your door, pray to your Father who's in the secret place, and

your Father who sees in secret, will reward you openly.

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen

do, for they think that they will be heard for their many

words. Therefore do not be like them,

For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask

Him in this manner. Therefore pray our Father in

heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into

temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For yours is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. For if you forgive men their

trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will

your Father forgive your trespasses.

Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites with a

sad countenance, for the disfigure their faces, that they

may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they

have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint

your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to

be fasting, but to your father who's in the secret place, And

your father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly.

So first here what we see is do not pray to get people's praise

or attention. So what I've just said by the

way of introduction to this, we, it's obvious, do not pray to be

seen, to be noticed or to be recognized.

Jesus forbids his people any kind of prayer with the mouth

when the mouth and the mind is not is not engaged when that's

separate. If we pray with her mouth, but

our hearts of energy says don't, don't.

Let's continue now with this passage.

Go back to chapter 5-6, verse 5. When you pray, you shall not be

like the hypocrites. They had prayer, a lot of it.

They love prayer. So I want to be careful what I

say here, but ask, do we love prayer?

Do we? So when prayer meetings come, do

we come or do we have prayer meetings on the side?

I'm not judging those who don't come to prayer meetings here

necessarily. Are we people of prayer?

So they had that going for them. They love to pray, but the

motives were wrong. They prayed to get human

attention and Jesus, that's not how you do it.

They wanted to be noticed, to be seen.

I come. I was born into the traditional

conservative Mennonite culture where praying in public would

never happen, at least not to my knowledge.

We never did it and so we took passages like this while we're

not supposed to pray for public attention, and if you do it in

public, then we can get proud and so we don't do it.

Were we perhaps in the same vein, just proud from the

reverse side? Good question.

Pride prevented us from doing what they did with pride.

So the Jews had their regular prayer times and specific

prayers that they would pray. I've, I've mentioned this in my

sermons here in this church before, that Satan doesn't care

on which side of the path you fall off the path to the right

or to the left, as long as you fall off.

For the Pharisees, they fell into legalism, perfectionism,

performance. They're praying lots of prayers.

It's a good thing to pray, but the reason why they were praying

was bad. I'm reminded in the book of

Amos, in the Old Testament, there were people who were

worshipping. God was not pleased with the

worship they were doing. They had prayer, they had

worship, and they had lots of it.

By the way, I trust the Lord is pleased with what we did this

morning. I trust now if everybody's doing

it for the right reason, I can't judge that the Lord knows.

But let me read Amos chapter 5, verse 21 and 24.

Amos 5:21

And this is tough. Amos 521 says I hate, I despise

your feast days. I do not savor your sacred

assemblies. Though you offer me burnt

offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept

them, nor will I regard your fat and peace offerings.

Take away from me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear

the melody of your string instruments.

Ouch. For God to look at a worship

service of His people and say that, that's heavy.

That says a lot about what he was thinking of their worship

service. They were not in relationship

with God. They had their programs, no

doubt well done professionally, maybe.

God, I hate it. I'm just, I despise it.

I despise your feast. Stacy says it's entirely

possible to have a large gathering, a large crowd,

professional, everything, and not have any connection with God

at all. God just says stop, stop, stop.

Get it away from me. I don't want it.

I'm not I can't, I can't stand it.

He doesn't like it. He's he's turned off.

But then he says something else. But let justice run down like

water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Let your worship of me consist of in living righteous holy

lives, like being the salt of Jesus.

Matthew 5 being the light in the community.

Make a change, make a difference.

Well, Jesus continues on verse 6 is but when you pray go into

your room when you shut your door, pray to your father's in

the secret place and your father sees in the secret will reward

you openly. Jesus was not pleased with the

style of praying the Pharisees were doing, but he does not

leave his audience blank and how to do it.

He gives his audience direction how to pray properly.

He just go into your room by yourself.

You and your father. Notice this word, Father.

I underline it in my Bible. There's numerous times he

doesn't say go on to you and pray to your God.

He doesn't say that when you pray, go on to you and pray to

your father, not to your God. It's your father.

There's a relationship there. He frames everything in this

relationship. Pray to your God in secret.

Pray to your no, he's pray to your father who's in secret.

It's, it's, it's a relationship not meant to be displayed and

paraded for show. Does this now mean that all

praying should be done as one-on-one with our Father

alone? No, that's not what Jesus is

saying. He himself prayed in public

numerous times. We have stories in Old Testament

when people prayed corporately, King David, Solomon, Moses, they

prayed publicly. There's a great need for

corporate prayer. And I will say this, as

churches, we don't do it enough. We should do more.

The new book, the New Testament, the book of Acts chapter 4 was

Acts 4 · chapter mention

23 and 31 to 31, that whole story where the apostles were

arrested and charged with preaching in this man's name.

You told you to stop. You don't stop.

They beat them and then they let them go.

And what do they do? They go and have a church

gathering and they prayed, they worshipped and the earthquake

and all that stuff. Acts chapter 12 is another

Acts 12 · chapter mention

story. Peter's been arrested, James

been killed, Peter's arrested, thrown in jail.

And Angel comes in the night and hits Peter on the side and says

get up, put your clothes on. And then they walks him out of

prison in the middle of the night sometime, don't know what

hour it was, but Peter finds out, oh, I'm not dreaming.

I'm actually free out of prison. And he goes to the House of Mary

and they're all together praying.

Not one-on-one and all each and one closet.

They're all together praying. There's many stories of people

praying together, Paul and Silas.

They pray publicly saying praises and worship public in

the prison Philippi and it was pretty loud, pretty noisy

because the prisoners heard them singing and it was they were

they were singing and and all of a sudden, the night God sends an

earthquake shakes the foundation chains fall off prison doors

swing open. The jailer wants to kill

himself. Paul yells, don't, don't.

We're all here. And result is the prisoner.

I mean the jailer, he's the real prisoner.

He gets saved and his household gets baptized and God is

worshipped. Praying in groups in public is

not what Jesus is condemning or against.

No, it's good. It's fine, it's good, but the

point of this is, is the relationship happening?

Is the connection with God happening?

That's the question. Then he says in verse 7, don't

use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think

they'll be heard of their many words, and there's plenty of

evidence of that too. Repetition, flowery language

doesn't impress God. I'm not saying we shouldn't use

good words, but you see, the deepest, most sincere prayers

are often the quietest, sometimes with the fewest words.

I'm not saying it's never a time to break out and joyful shout

and raising hands and loud praises.

That is, that's, that's fine, that's great.

But you see, when life falls apart and everything becomes

desperate, there are times when only words, the only words you

can say, simpler. Lord help.

And that's it. That's all you need.

Let me ask ourselves, are we committed to God as our Father

or are we committed to a God of our imagination?

Are we desiring to become more like our heavenly Father or are

we simply imagining him in our own human way and trying to

connect with a self-made image of what we would like him to be?

In the Old Testament there was a lot of idol worship.

People were bowing to statues of wooden stone.

They believed in different gods for different circumstances, God

of rain and God of harvest and all those kinds of things and

carve themselves statues to represent these gods and had

these elaborate ways of communicating with them.

Jesus talks about the Pharisees, talks about the heath and he

says stay away from it. They're praying from a self

perspective. They're focusing on themselves.

It's almost like standing in front of a mirror looking at

themselves and how good they are and it's all about them.

They love to pray for the purpose of attention and

recognition. He says in verse 8.

Therefore, do not be like them, for your Father knows the things

you've need of before you ask him.

There's nothing that we can say to God He doesn't already know.

He knows what we need, just like a parent knows what the child

needs or will need, and yet the parent wants the child to

connect, say, come and talk to me.

He knows what we need. He wants to give us what's good

for us, but He wants to do it in the context of a father's child

relationship. Then he says in verse 9, and

here's where I'll go a little bit more further, he says, and

this manner, therefore pray our Father in heaven, hallowed be

your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it

is in heaven. Give us this day Our Daily

Bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and

eat us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For yours is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. For if you, if you forgive men

their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will

your Father forgive your trespasses.

So we know how not to pray. Now here we know how to pray.

Pray in a relationship of worship, trust, dependence, and

faith in God. This prayer is known as the

Lord's Prayer. It's a prayer that Jesus taught

his disciples. And it's a good prayer, and we

should pray it. And we do pray it, but it's not

the only way to pray. It's a template, a blueprint, if

you will, on what Jesus wants us to think about when we pray to

God. One commentator I read outlines

this prayer in seven points, and I want to briefly touch on each

of them. So we come to God our Father,

and the first thing we do is we Orient, we align, we calibrate

ourselves to be in line with him.

And so we say, our Father in heaven.

We're here, He's here, we're the child, He's the Father, We're

the we don't get to to dictate. We listen, we request, we don't

say my God in heaven. We could say that, but that

would have it carry a different message.

As he is in heaven, his domain is in all places, everywhere in

the world, in the universe of all times, in all places.

We give recognition. The word father is a close word

Addressing God in that way speaks again of relationship.

Our father, my father. In another passage, we read the

word ABBA. Father means daddy.

Think about that coming to God and say hey, hey, dad, I need

hey dad, thank you. Hey dad, I praise you or I

worship you. Just something kind of off with

that. Maybe because we're not, we're

not acclimatized to it, but that's what Jesus did with this.

I know for some people, the word father evokes dark memories.

They didn't have a father or the father they had was very broken

and, and an ungodly man perhaps. And so this evokes dark

memories. I would encourage, if that's you

seek help because that's not the father of the, of the, of the,

of the, of Jesus, the father of us, the Christians.

That's not the father we're talking about.

The father that Jesus talks about.

Is this loving, all-encompassing, eternal,

glorious being God, who's our Father, who wants the best for

us, who sent His Son to die for us?

The image of a father is the closest word picture that can be

given in explaining how much God as a Father loves and cares for

His people and all creation. Next to you says hallowed.

Be your name. Don't take His name lightly.

His name is holy to be respected.

When we carry His name as His follower, we carry a powerful

message. This goes back to what we talked

about earlier in our sermon series about swearing, oaths,

and so on. How do we carry His name?

How do we value His name? Are we careful that what we do

lines up with carrying His name? Do our lives carry that

reputation to hallow God's name? We say and do as He does in

keeping with the holy standards. From there, then, we Orient

ourselves in a bit different directions.

Now we turn to our needs. Your Kingdom come.

Jesus says. We want God's Kingdom to come to

us here on earth. Now, today we know it's in

heaven. It's our desire to come here.

Many people cannot pray this with an honest heart.

They do pray this, but in their hearts the meaning is different.

What they truly want is for their Kingdom to come.

As human beings, we're notorious for building our own little

kingdoms where we're in control and things were our way and, and

often times we work extremely hard to get established and have

a home and raise a family, have a job, run a business and save

for the future. That's all good.

Where the problem comes in is when our Father is not the

center of it, when he's marginalized and excluded and

has no room in it. If we want God's Kingdom to

come, we need to first look at Him as our Father and see what

are you doing? How can I align myself with you?

Am I aligning with you? But then the next one's a bit

more, a bit harder yet He says your will be done on earth as it

is in heaven. Really, we pray your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's what we pray. But in their hearts it was

translated according to the intention of it.

If we had an intention translator, imagine that.

What's he saying? He's saying this, what's he,

what's he intending? He's intending that if we had an

intention translator that don't exist, I don't think, but anyway

we would say this may my will be done in heaven as it is on

earth. That will be much more like it.

Lord, will you make sure that my plan succeed.

Can you align things to what I want will happen.

That's what we mean often times in case we doubt that.

How many times do we get into a situation, a struggle.

Whatever we come up with, ideas and plans, we organize and

desperately want God to make it work and nothing.

We shouldn't plan, but then when it doesn't, then the whole life

is shattered. Where was the anchor?

In God or in the plan? Our first priority should always

be to come before God. Allow Him to speak into our

hearts and minds, and with that move forward and follow His

leading. We need to be guided by His

principles, His Word, His Spirit, and only then.

Oh yeah, According to what I understand God to do, I think we

should do this and that's fine. Then pray, but then he goes into

the more clothes. Did Our Daily Bread give us Our

Daily Bread. Notice what he's not saying.

Give me this year my yearly provision.

He's not saying that the focus is trust him as a child.

Trust the father. A child that your five year old

don't say. Hey Daddy, do you have enough

money to feed us all next year? Children don't do that.

Hey mom, I'm hungry. Hey dad, I'm hungry.

That's it. He's not condemning having

extra. He's not condemning having a

savings account. We're told to be frugal and safe

for, to be generous to others and so on to live in the moment.

We must ask when we start our day, we must ask, ask ourselves,

what's my desire today? Is my heart's desire today to

live first and foremost in relationship with God And then

from there, everything else? Or is it first?

How am I going to make it today? How am I going to get enough

food today? And I want, we need, I want.

And then God comes in last. We will see in later verses in

this chapter, we're not to worry for the next day.

We'll get there down the road in our sermon series.

We're to be diligent in our work, but not to worry.

And then Jesus goes into where it spiritually says the whole

thing is spiritual, but where it gets, it's kind of ramping up

here and says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

The assumption here is that as God's people, we're in the

practice of forgiving those who wronged us.

We're to forgiven, set them free.

What makes this passage so powerful is that Jesus says as

we forgive, if we want to be forgiven, we have no choice,

then we want to forgive. There are other scripture

passages where Jesus teaches us that if we don't forgive, we

will not be forgiven. If we refuse to set others free

who wronged us, we cannot count on God allowing us to go free

from having provided His commands.

Folks, we cannot manipulate this.

We may pretend to, but it's not real.

Story is told of two men in a village many years ago.

I don't even know if it's a true story, but illustrates a point.

So they were in conflict with each other, couldn't get along.

We're in fighting and just constant conflict.

One guy gets sick, ends up in the hospital, is going to die.

Well, he knows he's got some some some issues to to settle

with his neighbor and he's sorry.

He wants to ask for forgiveness, calls the neighbor over, sends a

message. Can you come over to the

hospital? I'm here, I'm dying.

He comes over and says, hey, that stuff between us, I'm

sorry. I just want to know if you can

forgive me. OK.

Yeah, I'll forgive you. That's that.

But then the man in bed who's dying, he says, but just

remember, if I get out of here, this doesn't count.

That's not real. That's not true forgiveness.

That's not reconciliation. Forgive us our debts as we

forgive our debtors. Jesus says, Jesus will use my

response, how I forgive my neighbor to say that this is how

you forgive your neighbor. That's the standard you've set

for forgiveness in your life. And the final one, number seven

says, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from

the evil one. We're asking God to protect us.

We're asking God to watch over us, to guide us, lead us away

from things that would distract and lure us into sin.

If we're going to be delivered from the evil 1 and not to be

LED into temptation, then we need to intentionally stay away

from what we want Him to help us stay away from.

Reminded of a story of a young Christian dating couple.

They plan to spend some time together by themselves.

They would they pray that God would protect them.

And then they went on a stroll at night on a moonlit beach.

They're asking for trouble. We cannot expect God to step in

and stop us if we're willfully, willfully engaging in activities

that compromise our relations with God our Father, to pray for

protection and put ourselves into bad situations, tempting

situations, that's just foolish, Richard Gardner's commentary and

Matthew writes in praying the final petition, we ask God to

protect this relationship. Do not bring us into situations

that might overwhelm our faith, but rather deliver us from every

peril that awaits us. Are we doing that with our

relationship with God? Or protect me from anything that

would harm my relationship with you.

And that protection can come in very painful ways because God

will start carving out and chipping away things that

disrupt that. We do want a relationship with

God, and that relationship is dependent on our surrender and

our loyalty to Christ. And again verse 14, he says, for

if you forgive them in their trespasses, your heavenly Father

will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive them

in their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your

trespasses. Again, it goes to forgiveness.

I would say this gently but firmly because this is so

important. Our relationship with God is

contingent and dependent on both God and the person He's relating

to, both wanting it. If only God wants a relationship

with me, but I don't want it with him, nothing will happen

and I remain in my lost condition.

But if God wants a relationship with me, and He does and I want

it to, then the miracle of spiritual life happens.

In that context where our focus is, we'll decide how our

relationship with God will go. If we do not forgive others,

Jesus says God will not forgive us.

Now we want to be careful with this too.

This does not mean now that I have to remember every single

last bad word that somebody said to me.

I have to have forgiven for that word and for that word and for

that word. No, it's not talking about that

or I remember every single last thing I've said to somebody.

Oh, I forgot I said that. No, the repentant heart is the

question here releasing each other.

The question I must ask, am I holding another person hostage

in my heart and not setting them free?

They may have repented a long time ago.

I'm the one. I'm the one who's the prisoner.

The bottom line is for me to have a relationship with the

Father and pray to the Father, and I cannot hold people

hostage. I want to also add that

forgiving someone else does not mean we must not trust that

person. They may have heard us and

betrayed us very, very deeply. And there's a time for trust to

heal, trust to build. It's earned.

Trust is not just given freely in Matthew 6.

Here we've been learning about giving and about prayer.

Now these adds one more element to his teaching as he did and

then giving and praying. The question is not if they give

if they will pray was given the context of fasting.

He says in verse 16. Moreover, when you fast, do not

be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance, for they

disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting

assured. They say to you they have the

reward, but when but you when you fast anoint your head and

wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting.

But your father was in the secret place and your father who

sees in secret will reward you openly fast for the purpose of

connecting with God. Fasting was a given in that call

from people fasted regularly. That is something I say to maybe

my own embarrassment and shame I don't do enough of.

There's something that's really fallen by the wayside with me

and I should do this at different times, but something

I'd have to grow in. And I think as a church we need

to grow in this. We find many times in the Old

Testament people fasted regularly.

The story of Esther in the Old Testament, she fasted because

there was a there's a need for people who were going to be

slaughtered. And so she went without food for

three days. The New Testament people fasted

and prayed and Jesus said the religious leaders fasted in a

way that everybody could see they were fasting.

They needed others to know, hey, we're fasting.

In the Gospel of Luke chapter 18, the story of the Pharisee

Luke 18 · chapter mention

goes to the temple of pray says in verse 1818, verse 12, the

Pharisee says, I fast twice a week.

I give ties of all I possess this figured face, sad looking

face. He's fasting.

You know what, in reality, as far as Jesus was concerned, this

man was sinning twice a week because of the reason he was

fasting. He had his sinning sessions.

He thought he was doing good. He says there's nothing in it,

it's dead, means nothing. Fasting is good and should be

practiced more more in our time, but it's not an outright command

as far as I can tell, in the sense that praying is a command

over and over. Fasting was I think once or

twice commanded the Old Testament if I have my

scriptures correct, but we don't find it commanded.

But it says when you do this, how you do it was assumed in

that culture. They did it a lot.

And even if it's done right, it's a healthy thing to

concentrate our minds on God. But here is what fasting is not.

You can argue with me, argue with me, and later on this,

that's fine. I don't care.

I don't believe fasting is when we deny ourselves an addiction.

And you know what? I'm going to fast from social

media for a week. That's not fasting.

Or the drunk says, you know what, I'm going to fast from

beer for a month. Giving up the bottle is not

fasting. I don't believe quitting an

addiction is fasting. Fasting do I understand, is to

deny myself the things I legitimately need for the

purpose of a higher good. When we fast, we deny ourselves

something we legitimately need in order to make room in our

life for the good we should do and want to do.

That's fasting. A person may take in less food

for a time. You have more time to pray.

That's good. Jesus teaches this is a

relationship matter between you and Heavenly Father, not

something for the community to be aware of.

All of what Jesus has been teaching this passage in the

Gospel of Matthew chapter 6, all of it is intended to Orient,

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Orient people toward God. This is all inward here, but

people do it for outward show, giving you the giving money to

the poor, praying, fasting. All of us directed toward how we

relate, to, connect with our Father and our relationship with

our Father cannot be contaminated with any kind of

self focus, either by giving or by praying or by fasting.

Daniel Henderson in the book titled Transforming Prayer

writes this. He says the world is not

transformed by relevant Christians, strategic

Christians, visionary Christians, leadership savvy

Christians, wealthy Christians, attractive Christians, educated

Christians, active Christians, or articulate Christians.

He says these are all interesting qualities and might

be helpful on occasion in building and religious

organizations, selling books, and so on.

The point is, these things are not what God is after.

They can serve a good purpose. He wants the person, the heart.

He wants a relationship. I think it's this way.

God changes the world by changing people one heart at a

time. A man by the name of Reuben

Archer Tori said this. He said an utter transformation

came into his experience when he learned not only to pray and

return thanks, but to worship. Asking nothing of God, seeking,

seeking nothing from him. In other words, just when God

was at the core of everything he says, then we're satisfied, then

we're at rest, then we're at peace.

It does come back to being in relationship with Jesus as the

foundation for all our existence.

And that's nurtured, maintained through prayer.

In the end, whether we do good deeds, giving to the poor, spend

time in prayer, spend time fasting, all of it must be done

in a context of relationship. Prayer is the link, the

connecting point, the channel, the avenue, and it can come in

many different ways. You know that LEMC, we do have

prayer time between our services.

You're welcome to join. Invited to join regularly.

Sunday after service, the first service, 10/15 or so, we meet

for prayer. I know not everybody can

something to go teach under school and that's fine.

And even in our church service, sometimes I've seen an

individual here, individual there, two people here, two

people there. They pray for each other.

That's great, that's glorious, that's awesome.

Not because of its show. They don't.

They do it silently or quietly, not to show off.

Don't be afraid of public praying.

Do it for the right motive. I want to encourage us as a

church to be people of prayer, people of worship.

I want to remind us Jesus desire desires us to be in that

relationship. Let's pray Lord, when you

created Adam and Eve and place them in the garden, it was your

desire Lord to see them enjoy your creation, take care of it

and above all to do it in a father child relationship.

We know the story and didn't last.

Today the human race has lost its compass, so much chaos.

There's a deep need of meaning, of purpose and direction.

You offer that in the person of your Son Jesus Christ.

You want to connect with us, You want us to connect with you.

So we ask you, Lord, to come help us to open up to you.

We pray that we be humble people, surrendered and

committed. Lord, I pray that as we do so,

we'll experience that rich, joyful, all-encompassing

relationship. In your name we pray.

Amen.