Praying to be Seen or Praying to be Heard? | Matthew 5:6-13 | Bro. Josh Pippenger

Well, I would like to say good morning to everyone once again.

Certainly glad that you were in the Lord's house today.

Hope that you've had a good week.

And as Matt said this morning, praise be to God, we got cooler weather coming.

Looking forward to that.

I'm like him.

I'm kind of tired of all this heat and humidity.

Be glad to see fall get here and some cooler weather.

You have your Bibles with you this morning, and you saw in the bulletin this morning.

We will be in Matthew chapter 6 this morning.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Title they'll have on the message today is the question, Are you praying to be seen or are you praying to be heard?

And we're going to look at some examples in the scriptures this morning of the scriptural way that we as God's people should be praying, the importance of prayer, and just as importantly, what we shouldn't do when we come before the Lord in prayer.

So in Matthew chapter 6, starting at verse 5, and this is Jesus' teaching on prayer.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Our Lord and Savior tells us, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

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

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

Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him.

After this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

Let's go to the Lord in a word of prayer.

Our most kind and gracious Father, Lord, again we come to thy throne of grace and mercy this day.

Just thankful for this beautiful weather you blessed us with, Lord, for the cooler temperatures you're about to send our way, and just for life in general, Lord, we're just so thankful and grateful.

We know that all the good things that we have come from your hand, Lord, that you've truly blessed us far beyond what we deserve.

We again, Lord, just lift up to you all those among our congregation that aren't here today for whatever the reason.

We just pray, Lord, if they be traveling, you would just give them traveling grace and protection.

Lord, if they're sick, we just pray that you would just heal them so that they can be back in thy house and thy service.

And Lord, again, we just lift up to you our nation and its leaders.

We just pray first and foremost, Lord, they would come to know thee as Savior before it's everlasting too late.

Lord, that they would just seek your guidance, your will, and your wisdom at every choice and every decision that they have to make.

We ask you to be with us here this morning as we open up thy word.

We just pray, Lord, that we'd put aside the distractions of the world and the flesh.

Lord, that we would just examine your word this day, that we'd take it and apply it to our hearts and our lives in such a way that we'd be a more faithful and dedicated servant for thee.

And we just pray, Lord, if there's one in the house this morning that needs to make a decision for thee, we just pray that today, Lord, would be the day that they would yield to the Holy Spirit's conviction and power.

We love you and we praise you, and we ask all these things in Christ's precious name.

Amen.

So I'd ask you the question this morning uh, how's your prayer life?

Prayer should be an important thing to us as the children of God.

Uh so often we wait until the last possible minute when our back is against the wall and we have no other recourse before we take our problems and our issues to the Lord in prayer.

The fact of the matter is, and as we'll see in our text this morning, uh God expects us as his people to pray.

He expects us to be a people of prayer.

He expects us as his children to come before him to bring our petitions, our requests, and our prayers to him and have that conversation with him.

Just as when we meet up with a family member or a friend, uh, and part of that communion, that fellowship that we have with them is that conversation that we have with them.

We talk with them, we ask them how they're doing, uh, we ask them about their day, we ask what's going on in their life, we have that two-way communication and communion with them.

Well, as important as that is to us, these earthly relationships, these earthly conversations that we have with those that are around us, uh, more importantly should be the conversation and communion we have with our Heavenly Father.

So often, when you ask believers in this day and age if they take time to pray every day, or if it's once a week, or twice a week, or every other week, or every month, or every year, a majority of believers today report that they pray and talk to the Lord once, maybe twice a week, and some are even farther apart than that.

For us as the children of God, prayer should be a daily thing for us.

It should be something that we are unashamed to jump to at a moment's notice.

As we look at what the Scripture has to say about prayer, and more specifically what our Lord and Savior has to say about prayer, I've always found in life that when you're talking about something or discussing something, it's always best to have a clear definition in front of you and a clear definition in the forefront of your mind as to what the topic is.

And so as I was praying about this message this week and as I was studying the scriptures and some other commentaries, um, I thought it would behoove us to look at what the dictionary's definition of prayer is.

And if you spend any time in Bible study, you've probably got a Bible dictionary or a Bible encyclopedia or a Bible concordance at home.

If you don't, I do encourage you to get one because they are tremendously helpful.

They are tremendously beneficial in your study of the scriptures.

And so, in a couple of the Bible dictionaries that I have at home, I looked up just what their definition of prayer was this week.

And according to the Davis Dictionary of the Bible, prayer is defined as simply communion with God.

And going to the layman's Bible Encyclopedia, uh, it defines prayer as communication with God.

So we see these two words, communion and communication, uh, in these uh dictionaries and these encyclopedias as defining what prayer is.

And I thought as I looked over those definitions, that's real good to describe what our prayer life should be with God.

It should be communion with God.

Prayer is about as much us bringing our petitions to the Lord as it is about listening to what the Lord has to say to us in response to our petitions and our requests through prayer.

I think so often when it comes to our prayers, we tend to view it as a one-sided conversation.

We tend to view it as us going before the Lord and bringing our cares, our concerns, our gripes, our complaints, our frustrations.

And we take all those to the Lord and we kind of unload those things on him, but we rarely stop to wait and listen for the answer.

And I do believe that the Lord talks to us through prayer.

That unction that we get from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit responds to our prayers and our supplications, and I believe he moves upon our heart and our mind to give us the answer that God has for us.

So prayer in that regard absolutely is communion with the Lord.

It's an important part of our fellowship.

And really and truly, that is how we have communion and fellowship with the Lord, is by talking with him through prayer.

As I said, just as we talk with family members and friends here on this earth, so we should daily be spending time in prayer talking to our Heavenly Father, communicating our cares and our concerns and our needs to him.

In order for us to have that communion with the Lord, however, you have to communicate with him.

And again, it goes back to that two-way conversation that we should be having with the Lord.

Now, in our text here in Matthew chapter 6 this morning, I love that the first thing that Jesus says there in verse 5 is, when thou prayest.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Now, I don't know whether you've ever stopped to ponder this or not, but Jesus is clearly giving a directive here.

He's not saying if you pray or if possible when you pray, but he says, when thou prayest.

He presupposes that you're going to come and talk to the Father through prayer.

So often in our world today, prayer is viewed as something only crazy people do.

Uh just recently, earlier this year, uh, there was a big controversy with one of the uh talk shows that's on during the day.

Uh I don't watch the show because I'm busy with work, but I did see the clips circulating around, and one of the hosts of this show, uh they were talking about um faith and people talking about the importance of prayer.

And this host, uh one of the hosts of this show, uh, made the quip that, well, if a person a person is free to pray if they want to.

They're free to do that if they so choose.

But the problem is when they think that they hear back from whoever or whatever it is they're praying to, we used to call that mental illness.

And we used to lock people up for that.

And that was what she said on national television.

And that sparked a whole controversy and a whole debate.

And the next day, because of the pressure and everything, she ended up having to backtrack that and make a half-hearted apology.

And you could tell she wasn't really sorry for what she said.

She's just sorry that there was so much backlash to it.

But it brought up an important conversation among a lot of people, and that was the importance of prayer and what prayer really is.

Now, for us as children of God, we know, we've looked at that definition this morning that prayer is communion and communication with the Lord.

And he expects us to commune and communicate with him.

And so we see this presupposition that Jesus talks about here at the beginning of verse 5 when he says, When thou prayest?

I'll ask you something.

Did you pray when you got up this morning?

Did you thank the Lord that he protected you through the night?

That he woke you up this morning, that he's allowed you another day of life here on this earth.

Did you thank him for the roof over your head, the food you had to eat this morning, the warm bed that was underneath you, the clothes that you have to wear, the financial resources that you have, the car you have to drive to and from work and to and from church to get you around?

There's so many things each and every day that we take for granted that we should be thanking God in prayer for.

Because he has richly and abundantly blessed every one of us far beyond what we deserve.

And we should be a thankful and grateful people for what God has blessed us with.

And Jesus tells us this when thou prayest, again, he's presupposing that we are going to come to the Father and speak to him on a regular basis.

And we should.

We absolutely should.

No matter what the problem is, no matter what the care is, no matter what the concern is, God expects us to come to him and talk to him.

He expects us to be a praying people.

And I hope, and my prayer is that all of us are a praying and a prayerful people.

But Jesus also gives us the correct and right way to pray, but he also warns us against the wrong way to pray.

And that's two things that we're going to look at this morning.

Uh, getting into, first off, we'll look at the wrong way and wrong motivations concerning prayer.

And going back to verse 5 here, after Jesus says, When thou prayest, he says, Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

Now, understanding that we are to be a prayerful and a people that are instant in prayer, Jesus tells us that we are not to be as the hypocrites are.

And again, this idea and this concept of us as being a prayerful and praying people, it also hearkens to another commandment we see Paul give the church at Thessalonakia in 1 Thessalonians 5.17.

Simple verse, and he tells us in three words, three simple words, what we as God's people should be doing when it comes to prayer, and that is pray without ceasing.

If you've ever looked up the Greek words used in the New Testament, uh that phrase without ceasing there in 1 Thessalonians 5.17 has a very interesting uh connotation in the original Greek because it describes somebody who has uh intermittent cough.

You know, we're coming up on cold and flu season season, uh, the weather's about to change, uh, and we know what that brings.

It brings a lot of head colds, a lot of chest colds, a lot of flu, a lot of things, and it's not gonna be that long before we start hearing people uh coughing a lot.

But they don't cough constantly.

And so Paul uses this secular meaning of the word in Greek that we translate to without ceasing to tell us the importance of us as God's people having an attitude of constant prayer.

Now, a person with an intermittent cough, they may not be coughing all the time, but it occurs frequently.

And what Paul is telling us in the context of 1 Thessalonians 5.17 is that we are to be ready and instant at a moment's notice to go to the Lord in prayer, that we should constantly have a prayer on our hearts and our minds.

And I've you've probably heard individuals say, Well, I have nothing to pray about.

Well, that's not true.

There's a lot of things we can be praying about.

I love the fact that we have time during our services that we can bring our prayer requests out.

But just because you may not have a prayer request to bring out that you want to ask others to pray for doesn't mean that there's nothing for you to pray for or about.

We need to be uplifting one another in prayer.

We need to be praying about world situations, we need to be praying for the continued unity and harmony and fellowship in our church and among all the Lord's people.

We need to be praying about uh elections.

We need to be praying about uh health.

We need to be praying about so many things in this world.

So we always have something that we can come before the Lord in prayer and talk to him about.

And you may not be facing any difficulties or trials.

Um you may not have uh anybody in your immediate circle that is facing difficulties that they're asking you to pray for them about.

Go and talk to the Lord in prayer anyway.

You know, prayer can also be praise.

We can praise the Lord through prayer, and we should do so.

It should be a staple for us as believers.

Understanding that we are to be a prayerful people, Jesus then addresses, again, back in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 5, uh, he addresses the way we can get our prayers wrong.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He says that when we pray, we shall not be as the hypocrites are.

In the Greek, the word, English word hypocrites, uh, comes from a word that means an actor under an assumed character.

If you've ever studied uh Greek plays uh or even Roman plays or any plays in the ancient world for that matter, uh one of the things that the people in those performances would do, if they wanted to portray a particular emotion or they wanted to portray a particular character, they would put a mask on.

To cover their face or to exhibit a certain emotion like fear or happiness or joy or anger or intrigue, they would put these masks on.

And that's uh where we get our word hypocrites from today.

It's one who acts, one who puts on a show or a production to portray a character or an emotion.

Jesus uses that term here in Matthew chapter 6 to describe those who are putting on a front, an act, a show of faith and piety, but that is as far as it goes.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

And I believe what he's talking about are those who put on a public display, uh the public display of being a faithful, saved child of God, but they've never truly come to know the Lord as their Savior.

And in the New Testament, uh who are the two groups that Jesus calls hypocrites the most?

The scribes and the Pharisees.

Because they were more concerned about the outward appearance of being religious, of being faithful, but they weren't so much concerned about what uh change needed to take place on the inside.

And comparing and calling uh those who are hypocritical in their prayers.

Jesus is calling out this behavior of putting on a good public front, but inwardly they uh the person truly needs to be saved.

Jesus tells us that when we pray, we're not to be as the hypocrites or those that put on a show.

Jesus says they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men.

If you've been a member of a New Testament church for very long, you've probably seen an individual or two like that over the years.

They love to use long, wordy prayers, and it becomes more of a case of showing performance than it is genuinely talking to the Lord and seeking his guidance, his will, uh, and demonstrating our faith in prayer.

Jesus says we're not to behave that way.

And you can kind of spot those individuals that are like that because they're very showy, they're very flashy, they use ten and twenty dollar words to try to get their point across.

Jesus says that when we pray like that, there in verse 5, he says they have their reward.

What's their reward?

They're seen and praised by others, that's it.

But there's a more important principle going on here that Jesus talks about in Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Keep your place here in Matthew chapter 6, but turn over to Luke 18, and we're going to look at another issue that Jesus addresses concerning prayer.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

And it's a parable that most of us are very familiar with, and it kind of illustrates the point of what Jesus is talking about there in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 5.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

In Luke chapter 18 and verses 9 through 12, Jesus is going to give us an example of someone who is praying the wrong way.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 9, the scripture says there in Luke chapter 18, and he, being Jesus, spake this parable unto certain, which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are.

Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

So Jesus gives us a parable here concerning the Pharisee and the publican.

One was mostly revered by the people, the other was utterly despised.

In the times in which Jesus walked this earth, when people saw one of the Pharisees coming, they tended to treat them with a great amount of respect.

They may not have liked them personally, they may have found them haughty and arrogant, but there was a begrudging respect for them.

Publicans, however, were considered the lowest of the low.

In the societal hierarchy of the day, publicans would have been viewed less favorably than a shepherd would have been.

And shepherds were considered at the time probably the lowliest of low positions that one could have.

And publicans were viewed worse than that.

And if you don't know what a publican is, that's the tax man.

That was a tax collector.

And we know today that some things never change.

Most people still don't view the tax man very favorably in our own modern day.

But Jesus uses these two individuals to illustrate a point.

Because there was a stark contrast between these two men when it comes to the state of their hearts and the state of their prayers.

Now Jesus says both of these men went up into the temple to pray.

The one you would expect to see there, the Pharisee, and then the other one that you probably wouldn't expect to see, the publican, one that was reviled and that most likely had been stealing, had been on the take, as we would say today.

Both of these men came to the temple to pray.

But you look at the attitude and the difference between the two of them when it came to their prayer, and that tells you the whole difference between the state of their hearts.

See, in verse 11, the Pharisee, Jesus says, stood and prayed thus with himself.

Now notice it doesn't say that he prayed to God.

It doesn't say that he prayed through the Spirit, but it says he prayed thus with himself.

In other words, he was standing there among the crowds of the temple that day.

He knew he was being watched by others.

And so what does he do?

He puts on a show, he puts on a performance, he stands up there and he makes a statement, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people.

I thank you that I am not an extortioner, God.

I thank you that I am not unjust.

I thank you that I'm not like the adulterers.

And Lord, most of all, I thank you that I'm not like this publican over here.

See, this Pharisee, he didn't care whether God heard his prayer or not.

But he cared greatly whether other people heard and saw him.

He cared greatly whether other people heard just how good he was.

And then he just goes on, he kind of twists the knife in.

There in verse 12, he says, I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

In other words, he's saying to everybody, look at how good I am.

I'm just so great and I'm so wonderful, I'm so pious, I am such a religious person, I am such a faithful person.

Well, just listen to all the things that I do.

See, he was playing the part of a hypocrite.

He wasn't even praying to God.

See, Jesus tells us here that this Pharisee was really only using this public quote-unquote prayer to brag to others about how great and wonderful he was.

He wanted to make sure everybody knew how spiritual, how faithful he was, and to have all the eyes of the temple there that day on him.

Because his motivation for prayer was wrong.

Because it came from an unregenerate heart.

I don't believe for one second the way that Jesus describes this Pharisee here, I don't believe for one second that this was a saved man.

He prayed with himself.

He cut down others, that it was supposed to be part of his calling, his job, his unction, to present the truth of God to others so that they could come to know God, so that they could be saved.

But he demonstrated none of that care and concern there.

Instead, he used what was supposed to be prayer to cut down others and elevate himself.

But you contrast that with the publican there in verse 13.

The publican, standing afar off, would not so much lift up, uh so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

See, this publican knew exactly what he was.

He knew exactly who he was.

He was under conviction.

And he cried out to God genuinely in prayer, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

And you look at what Jesus says about these two individuals there in verse 14.

He says, I tell you, this man, the publican, went down to his house justified rather than the other.

For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

See this Pharisee, his prayer was not the prayer of a saved person.

He didn't care whether God heard his words or saw him, only that other people heard and saw him.

See, the publican, he didn't care what others thought about him.

He didn't care whether other people bragged about him or talked about his faith.

His only care and concern was that God heard him.

He wasn't praying to be seen by men, but he was praying to be heard by God.

And so going back to Matthew chapter 6, speaking of these individuals, Jesus perfectly describes this Pharisee there in verse 5, when he says, They love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

And their reward, as I said, they receive the praise of men, that's it.

There's no eternal benefit, there's no blessing, just the fading and hollow applause of men when you put on a performance or a show like that.

Jesus further condemns a common practice of these individuals.

If you go down to verse 7, Jesus says, But when you pray, again, demonstrating that presupposition that we as the children of God would be people of prayer.

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

See, these same individuals would recite long, eloquent, and memorized prayers.

They would give no thought to what they were saying.

There was no genuine conversation.

There was no heartfelt movement there.

There was no heartfelt communication with the Father, but they were just reciting prayers that they had memorized.

When I was in college, I had a lot of friends that were Catholic.

A lot of Amy's family are Catholic.

And one of the things I've never understood truly about Catholicism and Eastern and Greek Orthodox churches is their obsession with memorized prayers.

They recite the same prayers over and over again, word for word.

And you know as well as I do, when you do something repeatedly over and over again, it gets to a point where you don't even think about what it is you're saying.

You don't think about what it is you're doing.

You just do it with no thought, with no motivation behind it, because that's just what you do.

In a lot of ways, it's like a computer program that's designed to execute one function the same way, in the same manner, every time, over and over.

When all we're doing is reciting wrote, memorized prayers.

Do you think there's any genuine conversation and communion happening with God when we do that?

Prayer should be because we love God.

The Holy Spirit has moved our heart to pour out our petitions, our requests, our cares and our concerns to Him.

And there should be a great love behind our prayers.

Because we know that when we come before God in prayer, we're coming before the very throne of the Creator of heaven and earth, the one who sent his only begotten Son into this world to die on the cross for our sins, our Creator, the author and finisher of our faith, our Heavenly Father.

And we should come to Him with grateful and thankful hearts full of thanksgiving and praise and love for what it is he's done for us.

We should not be vain in our prayers.

We should not use vain repetitions.

There's a YouTuber that I recently discovered, and I like a lot of what he has to say.

But one of my big gripes with his channel is something that I just mentioned.

He is a Eastern Orthodox Christian, and a lot of the prayers that he prays are wrote and memorized.

And every time he does this, I can't help but stop and think, are you saying this because you genuinely want this to come before the Lord and you're truly thinking about what it is that you're saying?

Or are you just reciting something that you memorize that you've been told that you're supposed to do and you're supposed to say?

Folks, when we come to the Lord in prayer, we need to do so in humility, we need to do so genuinely, and we need to do so because we love the Lord.

And we want to praise and thank him for what he's done for us just as much as we want to bring our requests and our petitions to him.

See, Jesus, in his condemnation here in verse 7 of vain repetitions and prayer, again, these individuals are doing this solely so they can be seen by men and so that they can receive the praise of others.

See, in both Matthew 6 and Luke 18, Jesus condemns selfish, vain, memorized, and disingenuous prayers.

If we were praying only to look and sound good in the eyes of others, that's the only reward, the only blessing that we will have for it is the praise of others.

God wants us to pray with clarity, sincerity, and humility.

So now we've looked at the wrong motivations and the wrong way to pray.

Well, let's look at what Jesus says is the right motivation and the right way to pray.

In Matthew 6, in verses 6 and 8, Jesus says, But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

And then in verse 8, he says, Be not ye therefore like unto them, or those that pray in hypocrisy and vain repetitions.

He says, Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him.

Now Jesus is not condemning public corporate prayer here.

And we need to understand that.

When we come together as the body of Christ, as the New Testament church, we should not be afraid or ashamed or hesitant to pray in front of one another.

As a matter of fact, it's something that we should desire after, it's something that we should seek after.

We should come before the Lord with that desire to bring our prayers and our petitions before Him and to have our brothers and sisters pray for those things and to uplift us in prayer as well.

We are to pray in church, we are to pray publicly.

But the motivation behind our prayer there is important.

Again, if we're praying to be seen, heard, or to gain the admiration of others, we're not praying, we're just putting on a performance.

Jesus tells us there in verse 6, enter into thy closet.

Now, I don't know about you, but if this is the case in your house, God bless you.

But uh neither of the closets at our house have air conditioning in them, and I would not want to get into one of those closets right now as hot as it is.

I opened up the closet yesterday afternoon, and it was like a sauna blasting out.

If I had to go into that closet physically and shut the door, uh I would pray, but it would be a very quick prayer.

But when Jesus says, enter into thy closet here, he's not necessarily saying, go into the closet into your house is the only place that you can pray.

But what he is saying is when you enter into your closet, when you go to pray, find a quiet, distraction-free place.

I don't think any of us would argue that our world is filled with distractions today.

Our phones, our TVs, tablets, laptops, all this tech that we have around us, there's a lot of distractions around today.

And unfortunately, because of this, most people's attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish these days.

But when you're going to the Lord in prayer, find a quiet, distraction-free place.

And pray to the Lord sincerely and genuinely.

Pray from the heart.

See, God already knows what you have need of.

Before you even utter the first word, God already knows what your prayer is going to be.

He already knows what your needs are.

And even though he already knows this, he still wants us to bring it before him.

And you probably had somebody in the course of your Christian life ask, well, if God already knows what my needs are, why do I need to even bother to pray?

Because it goes back to what Jesus tells us.

When thou prayest, it goes back to that communion, that communication, that fellowship that we're to have with the Lord in prayer.

He wants us to bring our needs before him, to have that communion, that fellowship with him.

When we do that, it's the same as when your children come to you and you already know what they're going to ask you for.

You already know.

They've kind of hinted around about it, they've talked about it.

They may have even been like little Ralphie in a Christmas story.

You know, when little Ralphie was wanting that Red Rider 200-shot range model air rifle, what did he do?

He took an advertisement for that gun and he stuck it in his mama's magazine and put it on her bed.

He was not so subtle about it.

When your child comes to you and you already know what it is they're going to ask, what do you do?

You let them come and ask, anyways.

Because you want that communion, you want that fellowship with them.

It's the same way with us in God.

When we take our requests and our petitions to Him in prayer, He already knows what it's going to be, but He wants us to come to Him anyway, because He wants that fellowship with us.

Just as we crave that fellowship with our earthly children, God craves that kind of fellowship with us as well.

So then Jesus gives us what we oftentimes call the Lord's Prayer or the model prayer, there in verses 9 through 13.

And in it, he tells us exactly how we should pray.

Now, I'm not telling you you need to memorize and recite this prayer word for word.

That would kind of defeat the purpose of the previous point.

But he gives us a pattern of how we should pray.

When we come to the Lord in prayer, we should address God and show reverence and respect for him and his name.

We see that in verse 9 when Jesus says, after this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

To hallow something means to show reverence and respect for it.

Address God as your Father.

Address God as the omnipotent creator of heaven and earth.

Have that reverence and respect for God when you come to Him in prayer.

The second thing, the second example Jesus sets for us in that prayer is that we should pray for God's will to be done above all things.

There in verse 10, Jesus says, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

I think a good example of this level of brokenness and desire and prayer is given in Matthew chapter 26, verses 39 through 42.

Matthew 26:39–42

The night that Jesus was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, what did Jesus do?

He went before the Lord and he's prayed three times, O my Father, if it be thy will, or if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.

Three times Jesus prayed for that cup to pass from him.

But he always added at the end, Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.

See, Jesus prayed for God's will to be done above all things, and we should too.

No matter what God's will is, it's going to be far better, far superior than our will and our desire ever could be.

And when we come to the Lord in prayer and we're bringing a petition and a request before him, we should always have that attitude, that level of brokenness before him, that we pray that his will is what's done above all things.

Then we are to pray that God will meet our daily needs.

Verse 13, give us this day our daily bread.

God knows that every day we have need of food, water, shelter.

He knows that we need a job to go to to earn an income, to pay our debts and our obligations.

And we need to trust him day by day to meet those needs.

Just as the Israelites had to trust him in the wilderness wanderings that he would send the manna six days a week, that they were together extra on the sixth day because it wouldn't come on the seventh.

They had to trust day by day that God would provide for them.

And what was the admonition when the manna came down?

They were not to store up for tomorrow, except on that sixth day when God commanded them together a double portion.

But the rest of the week they were not together more than what they needed because it would spoil overnight, but it also showed a lack of faith in God to provide for them.

We're to pray that God would meet our daily needs each and every day.

Verse 12, the next principle Jesus gives for us in our prayers.

It's a tough pill to swallow for most of us.

Because we love to pray and ask God to forgive us.

We come before God and say, God, I've sinned.

I pray you forgive me.

I pray you restore.

I pray you heal.

I pray, Lord, that you would put me back in your service once again.

But in verse 12, Jesus says, when we pray, not only are we to pray for God to forgive us, but we're to pray that God will help us to be a forgiving people towards those that have wronged us.

It says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

We all want God to forgive us.

But how willing are we to forgive others when they wrong or harm us?

And I know there are some things that some people do to us that are truly awful, they're truly terrible, and it is hard, it is difficult to get past those things and to extend that offer of forgiveness to them.

But in those cases, in those circumstances, I will say this God has forgiven us of so much more than what somebody else may have done to us.

And if God can forgive us for our sins and the things that we've done against Him, we ought to be able to forgive others for what they've done to us.

That does not mean that they don't suffer the consequences for their actions.

But it does mean that we relinquish that to God and allow Him to take care of it and Him to resolve it.

But we are to pray that just as God has forgiven us, that He will help us to be forgiving towards others.

We are to pray that God will deliver us from evil.

We see that in the first part of verse 13.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

We're to pray whenever we know that there is a situation coming up that may tempt us, that we may not be sure of which way to go.

We need to be praying, Lord, guide my steps, guide my heart, guide my mind, lead me away from the evil that others may intend for me, and lead me down the path in the way that you would have me to go.

And finally, in the course of the model prayer, Jesus says we are to praise God for his power, authority, and promise to return for us.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

It's a wonderful blessing and a wonderful promise to know that Christ has gone to prepare a place for us.

That he promised us before his crucifixion that he would come back.

There would be a day when he would return, and he would call us out of this world and take us to be with him in the Father's house.

He also spoke many times during the course of his earthly ministry about the power of God, the authority that God has, the authority that he has, and all the promises that God had made in the Old Testament that were being fulfilled in him, but that also would be fulfilled when he returned to reign and rule on this earth in righteousness and holiness.

We are to praise God for his power.

We are to praise him for his authority, and we're to praise him for the promises fulfilled and the promises that are yet to be fulfilled.

Above all things, we are to remember as we go to the Lord in prayer that we are praying to and serving the Creator of heaven and earth, the one who has absolute, all-encompassing, and never-ending authority.

When it comes to our prayers, we should ask ourselves if we're praying to be seen by others, or if we're praying to be heard by God, because it is an important distinction.

We should always have a desire not to hear the praise of men, but to hear the voice of God speaking to us through his word and his Holy Spirit as we come to him in prayer.

Our motivation for prayer matters just as much as the words we speak.

You can pray for the right thing with the wrong motivation.

We know the scriptures tells us that the Lord wants to hear us, he wants to answer our prayers, he wants us to bring our petitions before Him.

But, and I'll give you an example, if someone has done something wrong to us, and we're praying that God would get them, that God would utterly destroy them, that God would annihilate them, that God would make them suffer as much as they've made us suffer, do you think God is going to answer that prayer when we're praying it for out of vengeance and anger?

Our motivation for prayer matters.

We need to be praying above all else that God's will would be done, not only in our life and in the lives of others, but that God's will would be done in the world.

We shouldn't be showy in our prayers.

When we pray, we should remember that we are addressing the Creator of heaven and earth, our Lord and Savior.

Our prayer should be genuine and sincere, not flashy, not showy, not done to garner the glory and praise of men.

And we should follow Jesus' formula for prayer, knowing that if we are obedient to Christ in all areas, and this includes our prayers.