Prayer

Fasting With Purpose

Series: The Sermon on the Mount

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Matthew 6:16-18

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Matthew 6:16 “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

In Matthew 6:2, 3 we read where Jesus says, “When you give…” and we understand the implication. Giving to support those in need is not an optional add-on to the Christian life. Giving to support the church and the work of the gospel are understood as part of our responsibility as Christians.

In Matthew 6:5, 7, and 9 we read Jesus say, “When you pray…” and once again we understand that Jesus expectation is that His people will be a people of prayer. Giving and prayer are disciplines that faithful believers have engaged in for 2,000 years and I’m guessing that none of us would argue that Jesus no longer expects us to do these things.

There is an ongoing expectation that all who follow Christ will pray to God and give to support the spread of the gospel. This is made plain when Jesus says, “When” not “if.” Now, if we apply that same logic to verses 16-18, then we must conclude that Jesus expects fasting to have its place in our lives as well. Just in case you are not convinced, listen to what Jesus told the disciples of John when they asked about His position on fasting.

Matt 9:14 The disciples of John came to (Jesus), saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

In both of these passages, Jesus is not teaching on whether or not we should fast. He is assuming that we will and teaching us how to do it and how not to do it. Jesus is clear that fasting is a normal and expected discipline of the Christian life; but for many of us we just don’t understand why?

Transition…

What is fasting? Why should we fast? What should we fast from? When should we fast? All of these questions and more surround this topic and this morning we are going to get a crash course on a spiritual practice of God’s people that we see taking place in the OT, the NT and throughout the history of the church right up to our own day.

There are four things I want to cover in this sermon and they are: I. Survey of Fasting throughout Scripture, II. The Hypocritical Fasting of the Pharisees, III. What Fasting is really about, and IV. The Gospel implications.

Sermon Focus…

I. Fasting throughout Scripture

The first instance of fasting comes in Judges 20 and it is in response to a battle between two of the tribes of Israel and the fast was a sign of mourning and grief. In 1 Samuel 7 all of Israel gathered to fast and pray for God’s forgiveness and for God to deliver them from the Philistines. In 2 Samuel 12, David wept and fasted seeking God’ grace to heal the child born to Bathsheba.

The prophet Ezra called for the people returning from exile to fast and ask God for safe journey back to Jerusalem. Esther asked all the Jews to fast on her behalf as she made plans to go before her husband, the king of Persia, to plead for the safety of her people. You can read about fasting in the Psalms, Proverbs, and the prophets. It was a common practice among the Pharisees, the disciples of John and was practice by the early church after Jesus’ ascension.

But what is it? What are all of these people doing? Fasting is the voluntary abstinence from food, or some other regularly enjoyed gift from God, for spiritual purposes. Now, why do I include things other than food in my definition? For two reasons, one that is practical and another that is Biblical. Practically speaking, it is not medically advisable for some people to fast from food. For those with diabetes it could be quite dangerous. Because of this, I encourage those who are medically unable to fast from food, to find some other regularly practice and to set it aside in order to focus in a specific spiritual need.

Second, when we read 1 Corinthians 7:5 we see Paul talking to married couples who have made an agreement to abstain from sex for an agreed upon time. He tells them to limit that time so as not to give Satan an opportunity to tempt them to sin. To be fair, this passage doesn’t mention fasting, but I find it reasonable to conclude that there are gifts from God other than food that we might voluntarily choose to forgo in order to focus on a specific spiritual need.

In scripture, we see about 9 different types of fasting.

1. A Normal Fast -  Involved abstaining from all food, but not from water. In Matthew 4, we read that “After fasting forty days and forty nights, Jesus was hungry.” The text doesn’t say anything about him being thirsty and since we know that the human body can’t function without water for more than 3 days we assume that He was drinking water during this time. To abstain from food while still drinking water is the most common way that Christians fast today.

2. A Partial Fast – Is a limitation in diet but not from all foods. Daniel and the other three Jewish men chose to eat only vegetables and water in Babylon (Dan 1:12).

3. An Absolute Fast – Is to abstain from both food and water. The fast that Ezra and Esther called for included abstaining from both food and drink. After Paul was converted on the road to Damascus the text tells us that he didn’t eat or drink for 3 days (Acts 9:9).

4. A Supernatural Fast – When Moses met with God on Mt. Sinai we read that he, “Stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, (he) ate no bread and drank no water (Deut 9:9).” Elijah did the same thing in 1 Kings 19 and oddly enough it happened on the same mountain. Both of these fasts are indications of God’s miraculous provision following a unique calling. IOW, don’t try this at home.

5. A Congregational Fast – in Joel 2:15 we read, “Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16 gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders…” We even see evidence of this in Acts 13 as the church in Antioch were gathered together, worshipping the Lord and fasting.

6. A National Fast – Involves leaders calling on the whole nation to seek the Lord’s blessing through fasting and praying together. In Nineveh the king called for the entire nation to fasting sackcloth and ashes and to repentance of their sin because the king had heard the preaching of Jonah that judgment from God was coming.

7. A Regular Fast – There was only one regularly prescribed fast for the Jews and it was on the day of Atonement. It was prescribed to help the Jews recognize and mourn over their sin while also thinking about God’s gift of forgiveness through sacrifice.

Today, many denominations follow a liturgical calendar that calls for fasting during the time of Lent, between Ash Wednesday and ends 3 days before Resurrection Sunday. Lent is forty days devoted to identifying with the temptation and suffering of Jesus Christ. This devotion focuses on self-denial, fasting and meditation on Jesus bearing the weight of sin on the cross.

8. An Occasional Fast – These occur when a specific need arises such as Esther’s need to come before the king. Jesus seems to be referring to this type of fast when he teaches that the day is coming when His disciples will fast after He leaves them and goes to be with the Father (Matt 9:15). The idea is that we fast to show our longing for Christ’s return.

9. A Private Fast – This is the type of fast that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 6:16-18 and these occur when someone chooses to fast over a private matter where they might be seeking to grow in some spiritual way or they may be seeking God’s guidance, God’s blessing, or God’s help over some deep need in their lives. It might be done to express grief or remorse over sin or some tragic life event. A Christian may choose to fast in preparation for an important decision or the beginning of some new phase of life/ministry. Or maybe there is a reason that I haven’t mentioned.

But in the end fasting always has a purpose and that purpose is to express one’s need for God, one’s hunger for God in a very focused way. There’s more to fasting than not eating food, just like there is more to prayer than just quoting what we learned as a child.

Without having a spiritual goal in mind our desire to fast will simply become a battle with our bellies. If you have ever tried to fast then you know it can be very challenging, but to fast without a purpose is a failure from the start. The goal of fasting is to replace one hunger for another, to abstain from one need in order to pray for a greater more pressing spiritual need.

Now, I know that this is a lot to take in, but I want us to have a fairly thorough picture in our minds of what the Bible has to say about the subject of fasting. Now, with that broader understanding, let’s turn our attention back to Matthew 6 and keep digging into this subject.

II. The Hypocritical Fasting of the Pharisees (V. 16)

Matthew 6:16 “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Jesus only talks about fasting on two occasions. He speaks about it here to warn us against making it some public spectacle aimed at getting attention. Then He spoke about it later saying that the time would come when it would be appropriate for His disciples to fast. But let’s talk about what is going on here in this text.

Once again Jesus is teaching us to avoid a hypocritical way of fasting that is aimed not at helping someone grow closer to God but aimed at putting on a show for the people. These folks are aiming to call attention to themselves by intentionally disfiguring their faces so they would stand out and be seen. The phrase is strange, but it is almost as if these folks are putting on make-up so that they will look like they are in pain, or sick. These folks are going out of their way to stand out and be seen.

John MacArthur points out that the Pharisees were known to fast twice a week, on Monday and Thursday.

“They claimed that these days were chosen because they were the days Moses made the two separate trips to receive the tablets of law from God on Mt. Sinai. But those two days also happened to be major Jewish market days, when cities and towns were crowded with farmers, merchants and shoppers.”

IOW, they fasted on the days when they would have the largest audience. They were trying to appear righteous but acting righteous is not the same as being righteous. So, Jesus tells us to beware! Beware of behaving like you are part of His Kingdom while your heart is fixed on the idolatry of self, because the treasure room of idolatry and hypocrisy is empty.

Can we be honest, hypocrisy is an exhausting game and there is no reward at the end. To go through all the effort to convince people of something that isn’t true is a terrible way to live. You have to ask, why? Why would someone work so hard to make people think they truly loved God when in reality they just love themselves and they want to be the star of their own show. Remember that the term hypocrite has its roots in the Greek Theater and basically means “actor.”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Hollywood isn’t filled with happy and satisfied people. The glitz and glamour of that world gives the appearance that everyone is equal, happy, wealthy and truly fulfilled in life. But if we’ve learned anything about Hollywood over the last several months, it’s that the show doesn’t stop when the cameras stop rolling. The beauty and fame are nothing more than whitewash hiding a soul that is vicious, corrupt and wicked.

The problem with false religion is that at its core it is nothing more than pride. It is the idolatry of self and true fasting isn’t about exalting our idols, it’s about assassinating them. The hypocrite gets it all wrong and it still left empty and broken when it’s over.

III. What Fasting is really about (V. 17-18)

17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

This seems backwards but it’s not. Instead of hiding the fact that we aren’t faithful, like the hypocrite, Jesus wants us to downplay the fact that we are. He tells us that when we fast we need to clean ourselves up a bit. Wash your face, comb your hair. Why? Because your appearance has nothing to do with the real goal. Fasting is not about looking more spiritual, it’s about pursuing God in the heart.

Fasting isn’t really about food either, it’s about God. It’s not about getting less of something, it’s about getting more of Him. Fasting is not about showing how good you are at self-denial, it’s about recognizing how much the world, the flesh and the devil get in the way of our hunger for God.

6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Fasting is not about our performance, it is not about our self-denial, it is not about being seen; fasting is about replacing one hunger with another.

We don’t live in a world where a hunger for God is encouraged. Let’s face it, we don’t live in a world where hunger of any kind is encouraged. When we are hungry we eat. When we want something, we go and get it. When we are tired we take a day off. When we are stressed we buy something, or eat, or binge watch on Netflix. When we have a hunger for something, our culture is ready to serve up 10 things that say they can make it all go away. But they can’t.

The things of this world can’t satisfy us, they can’t make our pain go away, they can’t make our stress disappear. They can only mask our brokenness. But fasting for God is an expression of our deep need of Him, not stuff. It is an acknowledgment that we need God, that we want more of Him, more of His grace, more of His presence, more of His blessing. It is a physical exclamation point to the spiritual cry, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

John Piper writes,

The heart of fasting is longing. We are putting our stomach where our heart is to give added intensity and expressiveness to our ache for Jesus. We fast to express our longing or our ache for all the implications of Jesus’s power in the present moment that isn’t completely realized. We want to see people healed. We want to see people saved. We want to see marriages redeemed. We ache, and we long for this to happen; therefore, we ask Jesus to come by putting this exclamation point of longing at the end of our desires.

The problem with hypocritical fasting is two-fold. First, it seeks the wrong reward, namely the esteem of other people rather than the blessing of God. Second, it masks one love for attention under the pretense that they truly love God.

But the type of fasting that Jesus calls us to is to seek God. He calls us to go about our day as normally as any other so that our focus will not be on men, on food, or on ourselves; but will be fixed on God, whom we need more than anything. And Jesus’ promise is that the God we seek through our private fasting is the God who will reward us.

Ultimately the reward of fasting is that we get God. When we turn from the temporary satisfaction of food and we seek the full and overwhelming satisfaction of God, we will have our reward.

IV. Practical steps to your first fast and some Gospel implications.

1. Start small – start with one meal, or two meals.

2. Have a plan – what is the spiritual purpose that you are seeking? Time with God, prayer for others, a specific need…fasting without a purpose is just going hungry.

3. Consider how it will affect others – tell your spouse of your plans, or your parents if you still live at home. Talk it through with people you respect and trust.

4. Go through with it – pick a date, set things up and take the step. Consider joining the elders who fast and pray on the first Monday of each month. Fast that morning, that afternoon or that evening and join us in praying for the church, for our ministry, for the needs within the body, for God to grow us in unity, faithfulness and love.

Now let’s think of some gospel implications.

Why is it so tempting to wear our spiritual accomplishments on our sleeve? Because deep down each of us knows the sober truth that we aren’t’ what we should be. But we desperately want others to think we are. We think that putting on a mask will make things OK, but the problem is that our audience can’t fix us.

But the gospel drags our hearts into the light of Christ, where He not only exposes our sin, but puts us back together. The gospel teaches us that fasting is not about incentive-based performance; but about the posture of our hearts toward God. A posture that knows we can’t make it on our own, a posture that knows if we have Christ then we have all we need.

1 Pet 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory…

Fasting is not ultimately about self-denial, it’s about much more than that. It’s about weaning ourselves off the counterfeit and temporary pleasures of the world to find true and lasting joy in our relationship to God through Jesus Christ.

Conclusion…

Does fasting have a place in our lives? Can we abstain from basic needs for the sake of our growth in Christ? Yes, but it will be a challenge especially in the suburbs. Self- denial has very little place in the suburbs. Have you scrolled through social media lately? How many posts have you seen where people are complaining about petty problems? How many people complain about the drive-through taking too long, or the barista messing up their order?

We are drenched in a culture of petty irritations and in this culture of imaginary problems the gospel seems foolish. For the cross, is the ultimate symbol of fasting. It is the ultimate symbol of giving up what feels good in order to gain something glorious. On the cross, Jesus said no to the hunger of His flesh in order to pay the price for our salvation.

On the cross, Jesus denied the allure of comfort. He rejected the empty promise that everything is OK. He refused the false hope of easy solutions. He endured the pain and shame of the cross for the reward that the Father set before Him. Because of what Christ has done you and I can have the forgiveness of sins, peace with God and eternal life in Christ.

 

 

Praying to Our Father

Series: The Sermon on the Mount

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15

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Matt 6:5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

For some of us, the command of Christ to call God “Our Father” comes with some difficulty or personal baggage. For some of us, the Fatherhood of God is a bit challenging because you grew up without a father. Or maybe you grew up with an angry and abusive father who never showed grace, or perhaps a weak one who never stood up for you to protect you. Some of us were blessed with wonderful fathers, strong and safe, with big hearts and firm hands; I thank God for my father.

Others may struggle with the Fatherhood of God because they consider it sexist and would prefer to worship a goddess. But God hasn’t revealed Himself to us in that way. He is never called goddess, mother, or queen in the Scriptures but rather God, Father and King. Here in Matthew’s Gospel we see the Fatherhood of God referenced 44 times, second only to John’s gospel where God is called Father 109 times.

The Fatherhood of God is foundational to Christianity. The whole goal of Christ’s mission is to reunite us with our heavenly Father.

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the way, the way to what, the way to the Father. When a person comes to faith in Christ they are adopted into God’s family and made a child of God and an heir of the Father’s kingdom right alongside Jesus.

Rom 8:15 You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.

Transition…

Through Jesus we have a relationship with God that is defined as a relationship of a father to his child. This is the theme of Matthew 6, the middle section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. 10 times in chapter 6 alone we see Jesus refer to our relationship to Our Father and that is the theme of this chapter, Life in relationship to the Father. Our relationship to God through Christ changes everything. It changes how we give, it changes how we pray, it changes how we eat, it changes how we spend and save our money. It changes how we deal with worry and anxiety.

Our relationship to God is amazing and this morning we are going to talk about what our prayers should look like now that we have a relationship with God as Our Heavenly Father? With God has our Father, how should we come before Him in prayer? That’s the question that Jesus is answering for us in this passage and He gives us 4 principles that should guide our prayers.

Sermon Focus…

I. We should pray with a sense/knowledge of God’s Gracious Presence (V. 6)

6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Jesus wants us to know that prayer is not an audition, it is an opportunity to draw near to God. It is not an opportunity to gain spiritual brownie points, it is an opportunity to lay our hearts bear before our Father. Prayer is a heart to heart, not a negotiation, and Jesus wants us to put ourselves in a position where we can pray with an undistracted sense of God’s gracious presence.

Why is it important to pray with a knowledge/sense of God’s gracious presence? Well for one, because our Father who sees even our secret prayers sees everything else that we do. Nothing is hidden from Him. He knows our needs and the deepest, darkest sinful part of our soul. He knows the sin struggle that we hide from everyone else. He knows us truly, fully, more clearly than we can imagine; and yet, He loves us and has made a way for us to come to Him like a child.

Ephesians 2 tells us that “We were dead in our trespasses and sins… were by nature children of wrath, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, (He) made us alive together with Christ – by grace have you been saved.

It is by grace that we have peace with God and a relationship where we can come to Him in prayer. We come empty handed, repenting of sin, and trusting in Jesus alone; but we can come. We can come to God in prayer because He is gracious. We don’t earn our way in. We don’t bribe our way in. We don’t have to build up a good reputation so that He will think we are worth His time. His grace has made the way.

And when we come, Jesus tells us to go into our room and shut the door and pray. Now, the word here for room can have two possible meanings. We can see it as just an interior room of the house that is tucked away from distractions or it could mean the storeroom where the family would keep all of their valuables. Think, quiet closet or hidden treasure room. One commentator says that we should have in mind the treasure room where God is ready to reward us with good things when we pray.

In one sense, the reward refers to when God answers our prayer. In those cases, the reward may be the salvation of a loved one, or the restored health of a friend. It may be that God opens that door for a new job or a long-hoped for relationship. But sometimes God says “no” to our request and that is a different form of reward. Sometimes the reward is growth in spiritual maturity where we realize that, “God will only give us what we would have asked for if we knew everything He knows (Keller).”

Sometimes the reward is that He refreshes our soul reminding us that we are no longer orphans, no longer prodigals, no longer lost; but His dearly loved sons and daughters. Either way, Jesus wants us to learn to pray with a sense of God’s gracious presence and His grace never runs dry. His grace is renewed for us each day so that when we make our way into that quiet place and cry out to our Father, we find fresh mercy for our need.

So, we pray with a sense/knowledge of God’s Gracious Presence…

II. We Should Pray with a knowledge of God’s Fatherly Generosity (v. 7-8)

V. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

First, Jesus wants us to pray with our hearts in the right place, which is the opposite of the hypocrites. Their hearts weren’t fixed on God, their hearts were focused on how prayer made them look to others. Here in verse 7, Jesus wants us to pray with our minds in the right place, which is the opposite of the Gentiles. Jesus tells us not to use empty phrases nor to use mindless repetition in our prayers, thinking that these will gain us God’s ear.

In 1st Kings, we read about the prophets of Baal who would spend hours crying out to their false god hoping to wake him up to their needs. Buddhists spin prayer wheels that contain written prayers and they believe that each turn of the wheel sends that prayer to god. The Greek and Roman Oracles at Delphi and Dodona practiced a form of mystical prayer known for mindless mutterings that were interpreted as the will of the gods. In many ways, the Catholic practice of praying the Rosary or lighting prayer candles falls into this category; because the idea is that God will hear and bless you based on how long the candle burns or how many turns of the Rosary you perform.

But Jesus forbids such prayer. He wants us to pray with our minds engaged in conversation with God. Who doesn’t need to be woken up with our many words. God doesn’t need to be appeased by our repetitive devotions. He already knows our needs and He wants our prayers to be guided by the knowledge of who He is, and how He cares for His needy children.

As a father, I am nowhere near omniscient, but I have a pretty good idea of what my children need. When they come to me with a need or a request my desire is to be generous even gracious. There are times when the answer is no, but because I love them I want to try to explain to them why the answer is no. I want there to be a wise reason for the no but saying “yes” is so much more fun.

Now, I am an imperfect father, but my desire is to be generous with my kids because I love them, and I want them to be happy. I want to give them good things, cool things, fun things. But my desire to be generous doesn’t even come close to God’s desire to be generous.

Who is God? He is the universes Creator and Sustainer. He is holy, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; and He is our Father. He knows everything, even our needs before we present them to Him. We don’t have to persuade Him or manipulate Him into caring for us, He loved us before we were born, and He will love us forever and He desires to give us the best gifts in the world.

In Romans 8, under the heading of God’s Everlasting Love we read this,

8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Jesus wants us to pray with a knowledge of God’s gracious presence and with a knowledge of God’s Fatherly Generosity. But there is so much more. Let’s look at the Lord’s Prayer or what we might call the model prayer and we will see that Jesus wants us to pray with our mind both on Heaven and earth.

III. We Should Pray with an eye on the Kingdom of God (v. 9-10)

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

I don’t think there is any harm at all in memorizing and praying this back to God, so long as your heart attitude is right. But I do tend to think that this is meant to serve as more of a model prayer than a repetitive prayer. This prayer is like scaffolding or guardrails that help us as we form our own heartfelt prayers to God with one eye on Heaven and one on earth. There is something here about prayer that Jesus wants us to take hold of and it all starts with honoring the name of our Heavenly Father. “Hallowed be your name…”

This prayer is a plea for God to cause His name to be set apart, revered in the hearts and minds of everyone. We should want this, we should want our Father’s name to be praised. We should want our Heavenly Father to receive the respect and honor that He is due.

Also, don’t miss the fact that as a Christian you are praying to your Heavenly Father. Embracing God as Father is part of our discipleship as Christians. When we call on God as Our Father it reminds us that we are His children and He knows what is best for us. Our prayers are echoing in the throne room of Heaven. Our prayers are pinned up on Our Father’s refrigerator. God hears you and His heart is inclined to you because you are His child.   

The Heidelberg Catechism asks the question, “Why Did Christ command us to call God “Our Father?” and the answer reads, “because Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer – the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father.” Childlike awe causes us to respect and revere the name of God. Childlike trust causes us to know that there is nothing greater than our Father’s will being done.

Praying for God’s will to be done is like praying for every hindrance to God’s plan to be removed. We are praying that God would overcome the blindness that plagues humanity when it comes to knowing and loving and worshiping God. We want God’s greatness to flood the earth in such a way that everything is changed by it. We are praying for Heaven to invade earth, for all the wrongs to be made right, for all injustice to cease and for true justice to be poured out. We are praying for all tears to be wiped away and for God to take His place on the throne in our midst.

Jesus wants us to pray with an eye on Heaven and a longing to see the reality of Heaven invade the reality of earth. But this doesn’t mean that we forget about what is taking place on the earth.

IV. We Should Pray with an eye on the kingdom of this world (v. 11-13)

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

I could be wrong, but it seems that Jesus wants us to pray for three things here: our body, our heart, and our soul

The first part of this prayer is for the needs of the body, the need we have for physical nourishment. Jesus wants us to know that God is concerned with even the most basic needs that we have. He also wants us to remember that the basic needs that sustain us in life are a gift from God’s hand. We take too much for granted. Jesus wants us to pray for God to meet every daily need that we have, and He wants us to thank Him for every daily need that is met.

The second part of this prayer focuses on the needs of our heart. We need forgiveness and we need God to soften our hearts so that we can forgive others. Jesus wants us to pray that God would forgive us our sins (missing the mark) and that we would forgive others when they miss the mark.

This is such an important part of our Christian discipleship. It is such a pressing need that Jesus expands on it in verse 14-15 showing us that our forgiveness of others is tied to our forgiveness from God. So there are a couple of things we need to talk about here.

When we were drawn to faith in Christ, when we first believed in Him and turned from our sin, the Bible says that we were saved. When we believed we were justified before God, which means that we were declared to be righteous in His sight. Our sins were forgiven, and Christ’s righteousness was credited to our account. All of this is true in a legal sense. But in a relational sense, we need to continually seek restoration and forgiveness.

This is the point of I John…

I John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Jesus wants us to come to God confessing our sin and seeking forgiveness. But He also wants us to forgive others when they sin against us. He wants us to cancel their debt, to overlook their offense and to pardon someone for the wrong they’ve done to us. Jesus even tells us that our refusal to forgive others will keep God from forgiving us. Does this mean unforgiving people lose their salvation? I think it means that a hard and unforgiving heart is evidence of someone who has never truly experienced God’s forgiveness; or they are so hardened by sin that they have forgotten.

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant, a man who had been forgiven a huge debt but who wickedly punished those who owed him. Jesus called the man wicked. He pointed out, “I showed you mercy because you pleaded with me, but you refused to show mercy to those who pleaded with you” and He ordered the man to go to prison until he had paid off his original debt. The point is that an unforgiving heart reveals an unforgiven heart.

Finally, in verse 13 Jesus teaches us to pray for the needs of our soul. The world, flesh and the Devil are not at rest. Don’t let yourself succumb to spiritual overconfidence. We need God’s help to remain faithful in the daily battle against the temptation to sin. So, Jesus tells us to ask God for protection, for guidance and for deliverance. Let’s remember 1 Corinthians 10 which says,

1 Cor 10:12 Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Conclusion…

How should we pray, now that we have a relationship to our heavenly Father? We should pray with a sense of His gracious presence. We should pray with the knowledge of His Fatherly generosity. We should pray with our mind on the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this World.

He wants us to pray sincerely, humbly and confidently. He wants us to pray with His saving grace as fuel, in fact we can’t come to God unless we come through Jesus, through the fountain of flowing grace. But by faith in Christ we come and pray. He wants us to pray from the heart and from our head. He doesn’t want vain repetitive babbling. He doesn’t want pseudo-spiritual and hypocritical speeches. He wants honest prayer to flow from the hearts of His children to their One True Father in Heaven.

Maybe you are here, but you have never known God as your Father because you’ve never embraced Jesus as your Savior and Lord. That is the most fearful state in all the universe for you to be in. But you don’t have to stay there. See your sin for what it is, an insult to the God who made you. understand that Jesus is the ONLY way that you can come to the Father. Turn from your sin and come.

Don’t come to your God pretending to be something or someone you are not, He can see straight through that. But come as you are, open your heart to His saving grace in Christ. Repent and receive Jesus as savior and Lord, and when you bow before Him in prayer you will find all the love you will ever need. Come broken and find His compassion. Come needy and find His supply. Come confused and find His Wisdom.

 

 

The Heart of Prayer

Series: The Sermon on the Mount

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Matthew 6:5-15

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Matt 6:5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

How many sermons have we heard on prayer? How many books have we read? How many seminars have we attended? How many prayer meetings, prayer services, prayer vigils have we attended? For all that, how many of us still struggle to make prayer a consistent and healthy part of our Christian life?

Why is this the case? Something is wrong. We were made to be in relationship with God, but sin now gets in the way and makes it hard for us to pray. Our biggest problem with prayer is a spiritual problem. But there are others…

Maybe you’ve prayed before for God to do something for you or for someone you love. But it never happened so you wonder if prayer even works. Maybe, you don’t think prayer makes much of a difference.

Maybe you’ve tried to pray many times, but you always get distracted. 30 seconds into prayer and you are already thinking about something you need to do, or someone you need to call, or that conversation you just had. Then you feel guilty for not being able to stay focused and before long you just give up.

Maybe you don’t think of prayer until the last minute as you are walking into a big meeting. you wanted to pray, you know you needed to pray; but the truth is that you were so busy that you never got around to it. But here you are filled with anxiety and insecurity. You whisper a quick short prayer asking God for help, but it just seems so selfish in the moment.

Maybe the problem is that you’re just so busy and what you really need is a vacation. you need to get away from all the work, the emails, the meetings, the responsibilities, the noise. So, you plan it out, pack it up and hit the road only to realize that you’ve taken all the noise with you and prayer eludes you once again.

Transition…

At the end of the day, many of us feel frustrated about prayer, confused, uncomfortable with the silence and the one-sided nature of something that is supposed to be conversation with God. We have more problems than patience, more questions than answers and so we simply don’t pray. Can you identify with any of this?

In the book, A Praying Life, Paul Miller asks us to imagine a trip to a prayer therapist who is going to help us with our prayer struggles. The therapist begins the session by asking us to describe what it means to be a child of God.

You reply that it means you have complete access to your heavenly Father through Jesus. You have true intimacy, based not on how good you are but on the goodness of Jesus. Not only that, but Jesus is your brother. You are a fellow heir with him.

The therapist smiles and says, “That is right. You’ve done a wonderful job of describing the doctrine of Sonship. Now tell me what it is like for you to be with your Father? What is it like to talk with him?”

You cautiously tell the therapist how difficult it is to be in your Father’s presence, even for a couple of minutes. Your mind wanders. You aren’t sure what to say. You wonder, does prayer make any difference? Is God even there? Then you feel guilty for your doubts and just give up.

Your therapist tells you what you already suspect. “Your relationship with your heavenly Father is dysfunctional. You talk as if you have an intimate relationship, but you don’t. Theoretically, it is close. Practically, it is distant. You need help.”[1]

Friends, I don’t know about you, but I do need help. So, before we go any further into God’s Word let’s pray and ask the Lord to come and help us to understand and love prayer.

Sermon Focus…

We are going to look at this passage over the next two weeks. Next week, we will go focus most of our attention on the Lord’s Prayer and we’ll go through it line by line. But this week, I want us to try to get to the bottom of our own struggles with prayer.

I. Prayers that Fail (Matt 6:5, 7)

Matt 6:5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.

This passage is Jesus’ second example of the difference between hypocritical religious devotion and genuine life and relationship with God. Jesus gives us a picture of two men at prayer. The first one, the hypocrite, loves to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corner. But the thing he loves is not communion with God, it’s the recognition he/she get from those who see and hear them praying.

These prayers are a failure because they are not actually prayers, they are skillfully disguised auditions. These prayers aren’t aimed at God at all, they are aimed at impressing the people who are present. These prayers look like piety, but they are nothing more than pride. Jesus says, “Don’t be like this.” God doesn’t reward these prayers.

Don’t be like the hypocrites who love everything about prayer but the God they are praying to. They love the posture of prayer, they love the respect that eloquent prayer gives them, they love the spiritual pride they feel when people say, “Amen” in agreement with their prayers. They love the fact that prayer makes them appear to be super godly and that people think they are varsity level in spirituality because of how they pray.

Jesus warns us not to be like these men. He warns us not to approach prayer the way they do, as actors on a stage. He wants us to approach prayer with sincerity and even secrecy. He wants us to find a private place where we can focus on God. Now, this does not mean that a prayer closet is the magic place where God hears us, that’s not the point. The point is that Jesus wants us to pray with a singular focus on the Father and not to be distracted by the side-glances that are concerned with what others might think.

Now, this may be a big problem for some of us. But, I see a big difference between our struggles with prayer and the hypocrites struggle with prayer. They love to pray because of the spiritual respect they gain from others but for us, I’m not sure that we love to pray. For many of us it’s not a matter of praying in the wrong ways, it’s a matter of not praying at all.

II. The Essence of Christian Prayer

The essence of Christian prayer is relational communion with our heavenly Father. Jesus wants us to approach God in prayer with love, as a son or daughter would approach their father. That’s why Jesus teaches us in verse 9 to begin our prayer with, “Our Father…” How does a child talk with their father? Loudly, boldly, unashamedly, desperately, with no regard for decorum. They will interrupt you in a second if they have a need, or a want, or even an idea. Big words never enter that conversation, but feeling, and emotion almost always do.

Most of us have a very clear picture in our minds of what a relationship between a young child and their father looks like, but our prayer life with God doesn’t look anything like that. If there is a maturity arc to prayer, I think some of us have entered into the adolescent phase because rather than talking to God, many of us are more eager to talk to everyone else, or even to listen to ourselves talk. Here’s what I mean…

When a new baby comes into a family everyone is filled with hope and anticipation…and exhaustion. But as a new parent you don’t want to miss anything, you want to see and remember all the milestones. The first time they smile. The first time they make a sound. The first time they recognize you.

I remember the first time I looked at my daughter’s face, she didn’t seem to recognize my face, but when I spoke to her she definitely recognized my voice. She knew that her daddy was talking, and, in that moment, I fell in love.

At about 3 months the milestones begin to come and go very fast. They coo and giggle, the blow raspberries, they baby talk, they crawl, they sit up, they start pulling up on things; but every parent is longing to hear that first word. In the case of my children, all three of them said “Dada.” I know that is common for babies because it is an easy sound but I’m going to claim it. But the word itself is not the most important thing, the most important thing is that now they are learning to talk.

They are learning to communicate. They are beginning to interact with their world and their family and that means relationship. Then for the next several years we teach them how to refine their words. We teach them new words, we teach them how to properly pronounce words, we teach them how to use their words rather than their emotions. Then we hit the sweet spot where they will not stop talking and we stay in that spot for a decade or so.

Then they reach the teen years. They’re still talking, but they prefer to talk with their friends over the parents. They prefer to listen to others rather than to listen to mom and dad. They even like to hear their own voice more than that of their father and in these years, communication breaks down. In those critical years just before adulthood the lines of communication are often strained.

I wonder if there is a parallel between this and our own spiritual life. When we are born again everything begins to happen so fast. We are learning, growing, stumbling and getting back up, and we are learning to talk to God. Our first prayers are a mess but I’m guessing that God still wants to hear them. We learn more about Him, more about ourselves, more about the gospel and that helps our prayers, our conversations with God, become more mature and more meaningful. But then we hit adolescence and prayer stops.

We talk to our friends more than God. We talk to the pastor more than God. We talk to ourselves more than God. The problem is not that we don’t know what prayer is, or that we don’t know how to pray. We know that God hears us, we know that He wants us to pray, we even know that we should pray; but something keeps getting in the way.

Maybe its busy-ness. Maybe it’s a series of painful experiences. Maybe it’s bad theology. Maybe it’s a misunderstanding of the gospel. Maybe its pride. Maybe its guilt. Maybe its hypocrisy or some combination of these things. But something continually gets in the way of our prayer to God and Jesus is teaching us what prayer should be like within His kingdom. Jesus is inviting us to begin praying to God like a child.

III. Getting Back to the heart of Prayer

Jesus is telling us here to go back to that child-like time. Go back to that place of shameless intimacy with God. After all, being a Christian means that we have been fully forgiven and adopted into God’s family. Being a Christian means that we came to the end of our ridiculous attempts to save ourselves and in our desperation, we saw that the only hope we had was Jesus…and Jesus welcomed us with open arms of love.

He brought us to His Father’s table and gave us a seat. We belong in God’s family because of Jesus and we have access to God because of Jesus. But we still struggle with prayer.

Much of the time, the most obvious hindrance to our communion with God is that we just don’t believe the gospel is true today. Oh, we believe the gospel and we put our hope in its truth, but it just hasn’t seeped down into our lives the way we need it to. We just don’t believe that He truly cares about us, that He truly wants us to bother Him with our prayers. We just don’t believe that we have earned the right to have God listen to us, much less to answer our prayers.

Many times, our problem is a gospel problem. In this world that we live in there was a glorious beginning when God created everything that is. God created us to be like Him, to walk with Him and talk with Him, to be His children…and we betrayed Him. It was a shocking betrayal where we stabbed Him in the back. But God, had already made a plan to love us and our betrayal didn’t change His mind one bit.

He redeemed us through Jesus. He purchased eternal life for us, which means that He will love us and be with us forever. Right now, if you are a believer in Christ, your heavenly Father is looking at you and He loves you like His own child. He has said to each of us, “Hey buddy, my door is always open anytime you want to talk.” We can approach His throne of grace with boldness, why? Because it’s a throne of grace and He is our Father.

It is not our righteousness that causes the Father to listen to our prayers, or to answer our prayers. It is Christ’s righteousness from start to finish. It is the righteousness of Christ that saves us and restores our relationship to God. It is the righteousness of Christ that brings us into the family and gives us the right to be called a child of God. It is Jesus and His beautiful cross that brings us close to the Father and introduces us as a newly adopted child.

God hears our prayers because of Jesus. That’s why we pray to God in Jesus name. Saying, “In Jesus name” at the end of our prayers is not just a formal conclusion to prayer, nor it is a magical formula ensuring that we will get what we want. To pray in Jesus name is to acknowledge our absolute dependence upon Jesus to make us fit to come to God with our needs.

We pray in Jesus name because we recognize that on our own we have no right to come before God in prayer. But, Jesus is our great High Priest who always lives to make intercession for us. He sits at the right hand of God and He whispers our prayers into His Father’s ear.

Friends, let’s not brood in an adolescent state. Let’s come to our Father and talk to Him. Let’s talk to Him about our struggles, our hopes, our fears, our failures. Let’s remember, not our strength, but His strength, His promises, His care and His protection. Let’s praise Him for His love and His power. Let’s tell Him how thankful we are that He is our Father. Let’s pray for His will to be done in our lives, in our families, in our homes, in our church, in our community group, in our relationships, in our hearts, in our world.

Paul Miller,

Being a child in prayer means to just come. Children are not tied up in all the details when they come to their parents. They just come.

Jesus invites those who are weary and heavy laden to come to him. He doesn’t call the organized and fixed up but the broken. Why do we forget that when it comes to prayer? The dirty, imperfect and broken you is the real you. Don’t try to put on the spiritual façade in prayer. You can talk to God about whatever is on your heart, so just come as you are. Be weak and open in prayer before God. In this way you are remembering and applying the gospel to your prayer life. We need to learn helplessness. That is what a child reflects.[2]

Conclusion…

What I want us to do now is to spend some time in prayer. I’d like us to spend the next 5-10 minutes in prayer and I want to give some direction on how to do that.

If you are here with your family I want to encourage mom and dad to huddle everyone up and lead the family in prayer. Put your arms around those close to you and pray for God to give you all a child-like love for Him. You may need to confess some things, you may just want to praise God for some things, you may even have some things that are pressing in on your family right now. Just jump in together and pray. Don’t’ worry about getting the formula right, just pray to your Father.

If you are here alone and you want to pray alone please feel free to do that. But if you want to gather up with one of your friends, or a family in the church that you are close to, then please feel free to join with someone else in a few minutes and pray with them.

If you are not a Christian and this whole thing just sounds awkward or silly, let me remind you that you came to a church full of Christians. We aren’t perfect, by any means, but we are God’s people and sometimes we simply need to be reminded what that looks like. So, we are going to pray, and I would even encourage you to join us. You must be here for a reason, maybe you’re just checking Christianity out. Maybe you have a lot of questions or maybe you just want to know if God is real. I think you should pray and ask God to give you a heart for Him. Ask God to open the eyes of your heart so that you can know and love Him.

In your bulletin you will find a piece of paper outlining five ways that we can pray to God. You can ask for something, you can praise him for something, you can thank him for something, you can confess something to him, or you can even cry out to the Lord about something that is going on in your life that you just don’t understand. Each of these has a scripture verse attached to it and what I want us to do is to choose one of those, turn to that verse, read the text and then go straight into our prayer.

I’m going to pray a brief prayer to kick this off, then I’m going to go and pray with my family. In about 10 minutes Cody is going to come up here and lead us in a closing song.

Five ways that we can pray to God

You can ask for something—this is the most basic meaning of prayer, and God delights for his children to ask him for help. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).

You can praise him or marvel at him or give expression to your adoration of him. “Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:2–3).

You can thank him for his gifts and his acts (which is not the same as praising him for his nature). “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign” (Revelation 11:17).

You can confess your sins and tell the Lord that you are sorry. “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).

And finally, you can cry out to the Lord about something.  “With my voice I cry out to the Lord.… I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him” (Psalm 142:1–2).[3]

 

 

[1] Miller, Paul E.. A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (p. 5). NavPress. Kindle Edition.

[2] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/helping-your-people-discover-the-praying-life

[3] Piper, J. (2014). Sermons from John Piper (2000–2014). Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God.