"This, Then, Is How You Should Pray” | Matthew 6:5–15

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It was super great. Yes, yeah, that was a couple

weeks ago now, Chris, No.

No, no, this week. I saw it today.

Yeah, yeah, yes, morning. Yeah, well that's what's playing this morning.

But you and I shot one last week, didn't we?

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All right, well, hey, I watched The Bible Guys this morning,

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So today, Jeff, we are talking about Jesus making the comment.

Then this then is how you should pray.

There you go.

And so before we get into that, we have a

segment by Desiree. And this is not a very common segment.

It is a segment called stump the pastor the pastor.

We do one of these every few weeks.

Yeah, I'd say three weeks, maybe once every three weeks.

But this this is when only people write in. And

so this one comes in from Patrick. H Hi Patrick,

And Patrick says, what does it mean to quote hear

from God? And how do we know it's him? That's

a good question, It's a great question, and especially you know,

and I wonder if it's a you know, I wonder

if Patrick's been a Christian a long time, or if

Patrick's a new Christian or not a Christian. I don't know,

but but I think across the board, even for mature Christians,

you know, it's it's it's still a question that we

have to pay attention to. Right. We may know the answer,

but we still have to be in tune, I think,

to God's voice, don't you think? Yes? Yeah? So what

is your first initial reaction to this?

I would say, first of all, great question, Patrick. I

think that this is a question every Christian has to

ask at some point, and the sooner the better, because

what you're looking for now is how do I know

what I'm supposed to do? How do I know if

I'm honoring God. I'm trying to figure out how to

maximize my life for the days I have left, and

I want to be bear much fruit as we talked

about last week in the podcast for Jesus whatever. So

I don't know what I'm supposed to do. First of all,

God will never give you something that is contradictory to scripture, right,

So the first place to go is God's word. He's

already spoken to you. This is the thing. A lot

of times people wish, I wish Jesus would just show

up at the foot of my bed in the middle

of the night like this nine hundred foot Jesus what

to do and say, Patrick, I want you to do

X y Z right. But He's already given you his word.

So you need to become a student of the Word,

and you need to spend time in God's word and

every day.

And by the way, that's important because some people, and

I'm sure you've had a two where they've come to

me and they say God told me this, and you're like, well, no,

I'm pretty sure that wasn't God.

Because in the thirty semid years we've been in ministry,

both of us. Right, I've had multiple people come and

tell me, man, I feel so much better. I feel

like God told me I'm supposed to divorce my spouse. Yeah, right,

why just because I'm sick of them?

Right right?

I'm like, trust me, don't blame that on God, right right.

He didn't tell you to do that. There's a lot

of those kinds of things that people will do.

Yep.

So I said, that's first God's word. Man, you need

to know God's word. And if you're not positive where

to start start? Jump in with the words of Jesus

and then the teachings of Paul. I think those two

things would really really help you. So, Matthew, Mark, Luke,

and John are the teachings of Jesus for the most part.

And then you know, you get into the Book of Acts,

which is the story of the church. Luke wrote that

he also wrote the Book of Luke and then from

Romans on. The big chunk of the next portion of

the Bible is the teaching teachings of Paul about how

to follow Jesus and act like a Christian. I'm not

minimizing the rest scripture. But as you're looking for what

should you do in your life, that's going to be

the beginning.

It's the place to start.

Yeah. Yeah, so God's word, I would say, you need

to be spending meaningful time in prayer, and when you

don't know what to pray, pray for wisdom, pray for discernment,

and let not let God know you're willing to do

whatever he says. Have it be kind of a surrender

prayer to him. It doesn't have to be super long,

just I think it needs to be consistent, right, that

you need to be spent time per which by the day,

we're talking about prayer today, so that'll be great. The

other one is I think the Bible says in Book

of Proverbs, which by the way, I think you should

be reading the Book of Proverbs every day too for wisdom.

But in the Book of Proverbs, Solomon says multiple times

that counselors, godly counselors will help you and protect you

from making bad choices. One of the verses he uses,

one of the quotes, he says, there's safety in a

multitude of counselors, and so having godly counselors and you

measure the good counsel that you're getting against scripture. And

so the way you know whether or not you're getting

good advice from a godly counselor is does it align

with scripture? And are they're using scripture as the basis

of what they're trying to say rather than just their opinion.

A lot of people. Everybody has an opinion, right, right,

everybody has an opinion. So what you want to know,

what you want to hear is somebody saying, these are

God's words and this is how I think you apply

him to your life.

Yeah. And then I also think that there are times

where God will speak and and just like you said

number one, He's already given us a lot of commands

through his word. That's God speaking, uh. And then through prayer.

And then sometimes during prayer we will get hit with

a thought or or something that feels like a directive

from the Holy Spirit. And and I don't know about you,

but like most of the time for me, it's like

that was out of nowhere, and and and and it's

like and that that's I think that's probably the wrestling

part of his question, which is like how do I

know this is from God? Versus like my thoughts and

in which I would say, I would say that you know,

first of all, In John ten, Jesus says that my

sheep know me, and they know my voice. And I

think that the longer that you pray and the longer

you align yourself with getting to know God, the easier

it is to recognize what is from God in the

Holy Spirit. So that's that's a good thing. Uh. Secondly,

Proverbs thirty seven says, delight yourself and the law of

the Lord, and he will give you the desires of

your heart. Right, So the best thing to do is

to want to do good. And so when you when

you throw yourself into God's word, he is going.

To which is the law of the Lord's side, which is.

The law of the Lord's sides. Right, then he is

going to direct you. And you're going to say, oh, man,

I want to go tell that person, I want to

do good, I want to bless others, and and and

it's gonna it's just going to come out in the

form of uh, something that you want to do, I think,

And then uh. And then I would say, also, the

godly counsel is the only thing we didn't talk about, right, right, No,

you did. Yeah, but but but yeah, I would definitely

say if if you feel like something's from God measured

against God's word measured against you know, godly counsel, So

get the advice of people around you that you know

are good Christians and and and and see what they

say as well. And I think that God will use

people to nudge you along the way.

Yeah. So then Matthew six thirty three says, seek first

his kingdom and his righteousness, which is just good living,

and all these things will be added under you, right,

So seek first his kingdom. So what's God's plan for

the world, and and and be a part of that,

and then his right living and then all the other

things he'll add to you. So then that's why you

need to know God's word, because then you'll know God's

plan for the world and how, and then all you

have to do is figure out your part in it.

So then there's there's two more things. I would say. One,

I pray often that God will close the doors, and

then He'll throw open the right doors and then give

me the courage to walk through them. So what I

don't do is shove on doors. I don't I don't

find the thing I want to do and push on

that instead, I let God know, Hey, I'm thinking this,

but I'm not sure. If you open the doors, I'll

walk through it. If you close, if you slam the door,

you know, make it obvious. And and so I see

him do that a lot of times where a thing

I thought was a good idea, he just slam the door.

I don't keep shoving on that one. But then there's

other times when doors are wide open, and then you're

just a little nervous about it. You're not sure. And

if if you're seeking his kingdom, it's it's for him first,

and you're you're living right according to his words, then

all these other things to be added to you just

walk through the door, have courage to go through that

door and see what God's going to do. And then

that doesn't mean that you're never going to fail, but

failure is a great teacher. And then you just get

back up, you know, rise back up and go again.

Yeah, that's great. Hey, great question, Patrick.

I think that that's not all of it, but that's

a good start.

Yeah, that's a good start. I think we took a

stab at it, but but yeah, I think that definitely

as we begin as Christians to get to hear from God.

We just continue to pray, pray, pray, and the bigger,

the bigger the thing that you hear from God, the

longer you should wait and go to God and say, God,

please help me confirm this is from you. Right? Right,

So you know, start a business. Oh that's a pretty

big decision, you know, then you better pray through that

pretty hard.

Sure, right, yeah, But if you know, if you know

all of God's promises, especially with regard to right living, tithing,

placing Him first in every area of your life being

a holy person, I think you can have a reasonable

expectation then that in all the things you're doing as

you move forward. Next, if you if your genuine heart

is that God be first in everything, you have a

reasonable expectation that God's going to take care of you. Right,

It's not like he's going to go There's only one

linear path for your life, and if you step out

of that zap you know. Instead, it's if you're doing

all the things you know to do, and you're growing

in your walk with God, you getting God to counsel,

you spend it time in the world, you're generous with

your resources, you're holy in your life. God says He's

gonna bless that kind of person. And so we you

have a reasonable expectation that Hey, whatever path you're deciding

to go forward now, if it's moral and legal and

ethical and biblical, then you can expect that God's going

to give you his favorite. God's for you, He's not

against you.

That's great. Well, hey, a lot of that answer revolved

around prayer and speaking of prayer. Hey, that is exactly

what Jesus is.

That was a good transition teach us to do. Y.

Are we moving into good transitions now?

Is what we're doing?

Hey, that was a good one.

Wow, Yeah, you're right.

It really likes that. Oh it's great.

You know what, I'm going to leave it a good

I was going to try to correct it and make.

It bad, but it was a good one. So talking

about prayer. So in Matthew chapter six, Jesus teaches about prayer.

And we're just going to read from Matthew six, verse

five to verse fifteen, and it just simply says, when

you pray, don't babble on. Oh I'm sorry, When you pray,

don't be like the hypocrites who I was getting to

the babbel part, which is my favorite part for you.

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love

to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues

where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth.

That is all the reward they will ever get. But

when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door

behind you, and pray to your father in heaven. Then

your father, who sees everything, will reward you. When you pray.

Don't babble on and on as the gentiles do. They

think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words

again and again. Don't be like them, for your heavenly

father knows exactly what you need before you ask him.

Pray like this, our Father in Heaven, May your name

be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. May or

will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need. And forgive us

our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And don't let us yield the temptation, but rescue us

from the evil one. If you forgive those who sin

against you, your heavenly father will forgive you. But if

you refuse to for give others. Your father will not

forgive your sins.

Well, that's a nice little tag at the end of

that you, So it's a good one. So as Jesus

is talking about prayers, I love how he starts by saying,

don't do it this way, right, here's what not to do.

Don't do that.

Did I ever tell you I interviewed at Charles Stanley's church?

Did I ever tay that?

Yeah? And he had a prayer closet, And everything I

read about Charles Stanley and heard from his sermons, I

know that he was a super praying guy. Right. Just

you know, some people just lean more heavily toward prayer.

They're just prayer warriors. They're built that way. They spend

so much time in prayer. And he's one of those guys.

And so anyway, I saw his prayer closet and I

thought it's built right onto his office, and it was

just pretty amazing, and I thought to myself, Wow, And

but it dawned on me that most of his praying

that he had done and what I read about in

his books happened in private, right, not publicly. Right. But

Jesus is talking about praying for show with the wrong motives.

So the Pharisees would stand on the corners, you know,

and they would you know, praying fast and put ashes

on their forehead and they would make it sort of

a public display. And and and apparently their motives were wrong.

We don't, you know, it doesn't say that, but that's

the indication that that because well, actually Jesus does say it.

Well, he calls them hypocrites.

He calls them hypocrites, and he says for everybody to see,

all right, I was trying to give him credit, right,

but then he says, don't do it repetitively. And and

you know what's interesting is that he said, don't babble

on and on and on repeating the same thing. And

then he gives us the Lord's prayer. And it's so

funny because many of our listeners, probably like myself, grew

up saying, okay, send say ten Hell Mary's and say

twenty our fathers. And it's like, it's so interesting because

here he's saying, you think your prayer's going to be

heard because you repeat over and over and over, but

don't do that, and then he gives us the Lord's prayer.

And I grew up saying, I grew up with somebody

telling me to do that.

I led a guy to Christ a few years ago

and he got baptized here at Heritage Church. And then

he was started reading through the Bible. He was in

one of our New Believers kind of classes. Starts getting

excited about spend a little bit of time in God's

word every day. So what he decided, He's going to

spend time about ten to fifteen minutes a day reading

the Bible. He was going to spend a few minutes

a day learning how to pray. He wanted a weekly

tithe for God. And he wanted to be on a team, right,

some kind of a ministry team for God. Those are

the three things he was doing so, which I think

is great first steps for new believers, right, a daily

time with God, a weekly tithe to God, and a

committed team for God. So he was doing those things,

and he came to me after like two or three

weeks of this new believers reading his Bible and praying

every day, and he said, man, I just read Matthew

chapter six and Jesus says, don't Babylon and on he said,

but I only know three prayers. And he said, those

three prayers. I know that our father, right, I know

the Hail Mary. And then he had one more. He

had one more out of a prayer book probably, and

so there were three prayers that he knew. He said, Man,

I do those every day, he said, So now it's

been like three or four weeks. Yeah, he said, I'm

twenty something days in those are the only prayers. They

pray all three of those prayers every day, he said.

But then Jesus says, don't Babylon and on as a

dentile's do do you think I should find some other prayers?

And I said, well, I think God's waiting for you

to start talking from your heart instead of quoting something

somebody taught you, right, And so I don't. I think

it's very interesting here he says, don't Babylon and then

he gives us this list or this this model prayer

that we use to Babylon and on with Yeah.

So two years ago we did a series. It was

a seven week series called Higher Power. And if you

want to go to hero ai Church dot com and

then just scroll back on the media, you can listen

to the whole thing. But we broke down the Lord

prayer one by one. And what's so interesting is that

I honestly, from the bottom of my heart, believe that

Jesus didn't give us this prayer as a prayer to recite,

even though I'm very careful to always say reciting this

prayer is not a bad thing. It's it's a good thing. Uh,

you know, it's it's it's not a bad thing. But

but to to to think that saying that multiple times

over and over right is something that you know, equals

penance for the you know, for the different levels of

sins and things like that, that's where that that's where

the mistake comes from. But to quote this prayer once,

you know in your prayers is a good thing. But

Jesus gave it to us a model. How do we

know that, Well, because he taught us how to pray

in Matthew, but he also taught us how to pray

in Luke, and and in Luke he did a different

And if it was a prayer that we should quote,

then it's almost like we should say, Jesus, don't you

know the Lord's prayer. It's like it's like it's like, Jesus,

you forgot a part. And it's like, no, no, no,

he didn't forget a part. It says that he gave

us a model, and the model is, you know, it's

basically a thing to follow. So if you'll notice, at

the very beginning, he says, our father were in heaven.

May your name be kept holy. We probably learned it

as hallo would be your name. Another translation says great

is your name, because that's what that means. And so

what God's really doing is he's saying, like, hey, if

you want a prayer, you should pray like this, And

then he's basically saying, your first step is declare God's greatness.

That's right, you know, you should just just take a

moment at the beginning of your prayer, before you get

to your needs, wants and wishes, take time to rest

in just who it is you're praying to, because if

you do that, then maybe by the time you get

to your requests, then maybe you'll feel a lot better

about them. Recognizing just who it is that you're praying

to and who it is that's on your side, recognize

God's sovereignty, recognize God's greatness, and give God glory at

the beginning of your prayer, because it's going to reset, reframe,

and reshape everything about what's going on in your life.

And so I think that that's why that's there. And

then he goes on and then he actually, you know,

asks us to then lay out our dependency upon God. Right,

So God give us our daily bread, God give us

our needs, give us you know where we want your will,

not our own. God forgive us, right, and it's just

and it's our dependency upon God in every area of

our life.

And I think that the first half of the prayer

is You're the boss, right, and it's all about you.

Right.

The second half of the prayer is I need you,

yeah right. Those are the only two pieces to the prayer. Yeah,

so where at the beginning. And I've had people challenge

me on this. I've had people challenge me on so

many different areas that are similar to this. Romans chapter

ten versus nine, and Tennis says, if you believe in

your heart and confess with your mouth Jesus's Lord, right,

believe in your heart that God raised them from the dead.

Profess your mouth is the Lord. So I had a

guy tell me one time, you can't be saved if

you don't say it out loud.

Yeah.

Right. He argued extensively with me as opposed to the

intent being this, because it says to say with your mouth,

and in this one it says, don't pray out in public,

only pray in private. But it's interesting because Jesus prayed

in public all the time, right right. He also prayed it.

He had a very deep private prayer life, but he

would and many, Father, let them see your will, Father,

let them see your glory. There's many times where he

prays out loud, or he prays for the people. He

prays in front of his disciples. The disciples in the

Book of Acts, they pray together out loud. So he's

not saying don't pray. It's the attitude of the heart

that's the thing. And you're to talk about this. So

the hypocrisy is, hey, look at me, Look at the

big words I can use, Look at all the theolog

how theologically astute I am with my prayers. You ever

get around something like that. They just prayer, all pray,

They pray all the theology they know.

I call it a pontificating, Yeah, yeah, pontificating. Oh my goodness.

We had a guy at my first church. It was

like whenever you called on him, you just knew it

was going to be like this show. It's like it's like, everybody,

buckle up, get your popcorn. He's gonna pray, you.

Know, And it's funny. I think you should be respectful

in your prayer. Yeah, but uh A pastor friend of

mine one time said, if you wouldn't order a steak

that way, you probably shouldn't pray that way, right, he said,

the these and the doows, you're praying like Shakespeare, and

then you turn around and you just act like a

normal person as soon as you're done. So the way

you pray over your steak should probably have been the

way you ordered your steak. Right, Just just very normal person.

Just be a normal guy, Right, that's what God wants.

God wants you to be a normal person. You pray

over it with the these and the thows and all

these big doctrinal statements, and then you go in and

now you're just a normal guy talking about the new

truck pickup truck you're buying. And he said, man, God

can tell the difference between when you're when you're being

fake and when you're not. And that's a challenge. But

then he basically gives us two pieces. Your name is holy,

You're in heaven. Your kingdom is what we're looking for.

I want your will to be done on earth, is

in heaven. Those are all You're the boss. Everything about

you I'm not worthy of, but I'm grateful for man alive.

I want to be a part of your kingdom coming

to earth. I want to be part. And when you

think about that, what you're praying is, God, help me

to be part of being your hands and your feet,

serving the people that need to be served, taking the

Gospel to the people who need to hear it. I

want to be part of you making a difference in

this world right because I'm one of your children, and

I want your will to be done, not just my

will here on earth, even as it is in heaven.

And now, because you're the boss, I need you to

forgive my sins. I need you to provide for me

all these things right so that I can do the

things that I prayed at the beginning that your will

would be done. And those two things go together, and

I think it's just a really genuine way to pray.

But instead, because of the beauty of the prayer, we

love reciting it, and there's nothing wrong with reciting that

prayer together collectively. It's a beautiful thing. We just can't

get bogged down thinking that is the only way to

the formula is God, you're the boss, Would you help me?

Would you forgive me? Those are the three steps to it. Yeah,

and then he says, hey, don't be asking for stuff

you're not willing to do. Yeah, that's I think that's

the point behind that last one. Yeah, right, don't ask

for food if you're not willing to give food. Don't

don't ask for forgiveness if you're not willing to offer forgiveness.

Don't ask to be protected from temptation if you're not

willing to walk away from temptation. I think that's the

message he's sending there is because he doesn't talk about

anything on the front side. God, you're the You're the

one that's in charge. But he does talk about this

forgiveness thing because I think that's the hardest of them.

Yeah, I agree, I definitely agree. Well, Hey, that's that's great.

That's a great place to think. Wrap up. I feel

like there's one more thought maybe for our listeners, which is,

if you are you know, new and you you don't

have a habit of praying. I would say, take time

to pray, and do it in the morning, do it

before your day starts, and take just a moment and

by your head, and and just honest to goodness, just

like you said, talk talk to God like a friend.

Talk to God from your heart, recognize his greatness, ask

him for your dependency of what you need him. You

know what you want him to do for you. And

then uh, and then just continually recognize Him throughout the day.

And I would say, just start there, and uh, it

would be a start to a great prayer life.

Yeah.

So all right, well that's our time, so hopefully we

will see you tomorrow on the Bible guys. H