Weekly Sermon Overview

Message Date: June 22, 2014 Message Title: When You Pray

OVERVIEW “And when you pray, do not be l ike the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tel l you, they have received their reward in ful l . But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, wil l reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling l ike pagans, for they think they wil l be heard because of their many words. Do not be l ike them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your wil l be done, on earth as i t is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evi l one.’ For i f you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father wil l also forgive you. But i f you do not forgive others their s ins, your Father wil l not forgive your sins.” -Matthew 6:5-15 These are perhaps the most discussed verses in what is perhaps the most discussed passage in the whole of the New Testament, but if I had to sum up Jesus’ landmark teaching on prayer in one sentence, I think this would be it: “Remember whom you’re talking to.” Woven throughout this passage, both in the opening section—the “how not to do it” section—and in the Lord’s Prayer—the “how to do it” section, is a requisite awareness of the nature and character of the Person to whom we speak in prayer. In other words, what Jesus is saying here is both that our many dysfunctions in prayer stem from an inadequate understanding or awareness of God and, conversely, that our “success” in prayer—if we can call it that—comes only as we approach God knowing, to the best of our ability, who He is and what He’s up to in the world. Jesus starts with the dysfunctions, here specifically naming two of the most prevalent, though we could quickly brainstorm a much longer list. The first of these improper attitudes toward and practices of prayer involves what Jesus calls hypocrisy, that is, an inconsistency between outward action and inward posture.

“And when you pray, do not be l ike the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tel l you, they have received their reward in ful l . But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, wil l reward you.” -Matthew 6:5-6 In a culture where piety and power often went hand-in-hand, it was remarkably easy to find your internal and external lives out of sync with one another. Even among the most well intentioned, it must have been difficult to avoid the type of spiritual hypocrisy that Jesus condemns here. I mean, if you think about it, the socio-religious system of that day almost served to perpetuate the problem. In any religious society, prestige and influence will always be linked with piety, and this is not inherently a bad thing. It is right that we should honor and respect the great men and women of faith who shape and lead our communities. However, there is a dangerous edge here: the temptation to elevate the honor and respect above the piety for which it is given. In other words, what Jesus observed and railed against was a religiosity motivated not by God but by people. It had become common practice in that day to stand and pray in public, making a great show of your spirituality, and Jesus says that this kind of prayer is hypocritical and ultimately, eternally ineffective because it is prayed with an inadequate awareness of the One for who prayer is intended. Karl Bart said it like this: “Prayer is not prayer if it is addressed to anyone else but God.” And, here, that’s exactly what Jesus warns against, prayer that is addressed at any audience other that God. As we will see in just a few verses, prayer is a gift given to us for the sake of connection with our sovereign, holy Father, so to reduce it to a spectator sport is foolish and dangerous. The kind of prayer that God desires is authentic, unselfconscious, and thoroughly Godward. The second dysfunction that Jesus identifies here He calls “babbling,” in other words, rambling, which He identifies with “pagan” practice. This would have been a remarkably offensive comparison to Jesus’ contemporaries who considered themselves the least pagan people on the planet. But, Jesus, never one to be overly concerned about giving offense where offense was due, went right for the heart of their own “devout” prayer practices:

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling l ike pagans, for they think they wil l be heard because of their many words. Do not be l ike them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. -Matthew 6:7-8 Orthodox Jewish prayer of the time often involved the repetition (often multiple times a day) of several liturgical prayers, including the 18 Benedictions, the Shema, prayers before meals, and a variety of other doxologies, which, though all beautiful and true in their nature, became not voluntary and joyful mediation on and communion with God but mandatory, strictly-regulated babbling motivated, again, more out of fear of man than relationship with God. And, in response, Jesus says, “Enough! You don’t need to prattle on and on because (and, notice once again, fundamental to prayer is a recognition of the character of God) God already knows what you need before you ask.” So, Jesus says, instead of droning on and on, keep your prayers short and simple. Christian commentator, Frederick Bruner notes that this, seemingly paradoxically, is actually the secret behind Paul’s “ceaseless prayer”. He writes: “The paradox of prayer is that only when it is relieved of the necessity of much will people experience the freedom for much. When disciples know they don’t have to pray much, they will, surprisingly, desire to pray more.” So, rather than seeking the right formula or combination of words to gain access to God, Jesus encourages us to simply remember who we’re talking to—the One who already knows what we need—and then, talk with Him. Now, having dealt with these dysfunctions, Jesus models for us a functional prayer life: This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your wil l be done, on earth as i t is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evi l one.’ -Matthew 6:9-13 Again, much has been and still can be written on these verses, but for the sake of our conversation this week, let’s just call attention to the simple two-part structure and

the ebbing and waning movement of that structure between the immanence and transcendence of God. The prayer is essentially broken down into two key components: recognition and response. We start with recognition and, of course, reorientation, which is a requisite part of any true awareness of God. Jesus teaches us to recognize and, in doing so, align ourselves to, the love, authority, holiness, and sovereignty of God in the first section of this prayer. “Our Father” is both a startlingly bold and altogether unprecedented statement about the immanence—indeed, about the tenderness—of God and, at the same time, an affirmation of His authority. The petition, “Hallowed be your name” is a prayer asking that the space within and around us be realigned and restored to a correct Edenic understanding and awareness of the greatness and glory of the One we are invited to call Father, thus snapping us, rather abruptly back to the transcendence of a God for whom the heavens are throne and the earth a footstool. And, following, on the heels of these paired recognitions comes an alignment of self and sphere of influence beneath the love and authority of this imminent and transcendent God, all, of course, framed in language with which we have become quite familiar throughout this series: “Your Kingdom come your wil l be done on earth as i t is in heaven.” -Matthew 6:10 In fact, this statement/request becomes something of a bridging prayer between the first section—the recognition—and the second section—our response. Again, moving freely between earth and heaven, Jesus, who has just fixed our eyes on the Glory of the Heavens, then invites us, on the basis of what we have just seen, to ask for anything we need (ala John 14:14). Here, Jesus breaks the asking down into three petitions: provision, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil (the Evil One). And, having so based our prayer on an awareness of and submission to the character of God, these three requests make perfect sense. As we ask for His Kingdom to come within and around us, what we are, in fact, asking for are the resources to participate with Him in the restoration of the cosmos. As we seek His will in us and on earth as it is in heaven, we also recognize that the space around us is not yet heaven, that we are living in enemy-occupied territory, so we pray for deliverance. And, as we stand

in the presence of this holy, hallowed God, we recognize the filth and stain of our sin and beg forgiveness, but then, remembering that He, uncontained even by the vastness of time and space, is our Father, our Abba, and that He loves us and has forgiven us, we then extend that forgiveness to those around us: “even as we…” (which, then, leads to Jesus’ recurring concern, in vv. 14-15, that we do, in fact, forgive one another, a theme we’ll address in a coming week). A short, simple prayer based on entirely on a recognition and awareness of the presence and character of God that does away with any perversions and dysfunctions of prayer. And, of course, in thinking through this passage, I became keenly aware of my own perversions of prayer, my own struggles both with the two dysfunctions Jesus called out and with many others that He does not identify in this passage. And, as I read through this prayer that I have literally quoted hundreds of times, God reminded me, once again, that the most important thing in prayer is to remember whom I’m talking to. Author: Josh Harrison REFLECTION Next time you pray, have a conversation with God instead of just talking out loud to him. After you ask questions, listen for His responses. Refocus this time to be a time of simply being with God and conversing with Him. NEXT STEP RESOURCES (Check out these resources for additional reading on this topic.)

1. Who Is This Man: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus by John Ortberg

2. The Jesus I Never Knew by Phillip Yancey