Matthew 6:5-13 - The Model Prayer

Tom Shrader examines Jesus' teaching on prayer from Matthew 6:5-15, contrasting the hypocritical prayers of the Pharisees with genuine communion with God. He warns against praying for show or using meaningless repetition, emphasizing that prayer is primarily about aligning our hearts with God's will rather than informing Him of our needs. The teaching introduces the Lord's Prayer as a model for intimate relationship with our heavenly Father.

“God hates religion if by religion we mean meaningless ritual compliance.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Sermon on the Mount

Recorded: 2002

Duration: 42 min

Themes: prayer, hypocrisy, heart, authenticity, humility, communion, righteousness, relationship, struggling with pride, religious background, parent, new believer, feeling hypocritical, seeking authenticity, church leader, young adult

Scripture: Matthew 5:24, Matthew 6:1, Matthew 6:5-15, Mark 12:40, 1 Kings 18, 1 Chronicles 4:10, Matthew 14, Acts 4, 1 Timothy 2, John 17, John 14-17, Luke 11

Theological Themes: lords prayer, pharisaism, heart condition, spiritual discipline, sanctification, communion with god, religious hypocrisy, genuine faith

Full Transcript

This is teaching. One of the great things that I have, there's a bondage, a tyranny that takes place in my life. And it's the life of anybody I think that does what I do. Maybe it's doubled a little bit because you have people in the middle, but there's this tyranny of having to do this. Now understand what I'm saying, this is great joy, there's nothing else I'd rather do. But you just finish on Sunday and you get to Monday and all of a sudden I go in on Tuesday and I realize I've got to have everything ready for Wednesday and when Thursday's over now I go to the gym and then start literally on Sunday and that's already half done and it just keeps going. Well there's a tyranny to that. I mean that's really hard, it may not seem like it. I'm not complaining either, as I said it out loud it sounded like it.

But there's a blessing and part of the blessing is you see how God's word just comes together. And while we're studying different things in church and in here, you see themes. And one of the great themes of this scripture to a New Testament believer is that while what you do is really important, why you do it is ultimately the indicator. God looks at the heart and we come back to that over and over and over again.

The Heart Behind Our Actions

So while we're very concerned with what you do, I mean for example for you to be here is terrific, but that doesn't mean much if your heart's not right. I mean it can all matter why you're here and it's here to please a client or be with a friend or whatever. We get a lot of it where you have kids and I just warn you who are raising children, you can get a great kid and everybody stops and says, oh isn't she a great girl, isn't he a great guy. They can be morally compliant and still not be converted. That's a very important distinction. Don't confuse somebody who's morally compliant with somebody who's converted.

This is really a very hard thing and we go through this not so that you can kind of guess about everybody around you, but so you can look at your own heart. And I say all that to drive us back to this verse yet again. I think we've talked about it virtually every week. Matthew 5:24, "I say to you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of God."

Unless your righteousness is beyond those of the scribes and the Pharisees. And for us, that verse really I think loses almost all of its impact because we kind of see these guys as sinister guys anyway. But remember to these Jews, they were the guys. Unless you're better than Mother Teresa and Billy Graham and the Pope and I don't know who else is in there, John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul and Carswell and all this stuff. Unless you're better than all these guys, then you ain't going to heaven. Well, if you hear that, you go, that don't work. This wasn't a statement of hope to these guys. That was despair to them.

Jesus Reveals the Heart of the Matter

But then Jesus comes along and says, listen, you've heard it said. In other words, these guys have told you this, but I say to you, you've heard it said, don't commit adultery. And they haven't. But I say to you, don't look at a woman and lust after her. The issue here is her heart. What about your heart?

What had happened in these Jewish people's lives, the leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees is that their religion was just that. It was a religion. Let me tell you, God hates religion. He can't stand religion. If by religion we mean meaningless ritual compliance. God says, that makes me sick. You can be in church and still not be a Christian. Right? Sure. Absolutely. So what He's looking at is the heart here.

For these Jewish leaders, they were doing, now get this is really important to me. They were doing all the right things, but they were doing them all for the wrong reason. He doesn't say to you, okay, they're praying. Now you don't pray. They're fasting. Now you don't fast. They're giving. Now you don't give. He doesn't say that. He says they're giving. When you give, you give, but don't give that way. When they're praying, but when you pray, you pray, but don't pray that way. See that? He's getting to the heart of the matter, which is your heart.

How Prayer Became Performance

And these Jewish leaders had taken and turned it into a spectacle where they're elevated, where everybody would stop and say, oh, they're the guys. Wow. Isn't that something special? Come to prayer today. Here's what they'd done to prayer. I'll give you five things. This is from William Barcley. This is what he says.

Number one, their prayer had become ritualistic. We'll talk about each of these briefly, and then you'll see them as we deal with the passage in front of us in Matthew 6. Their prayer had become ritualistic. They prayed faithfully morning, noon, and night. They had the same 18 prayers that they prayed each day faithfully. They'd stop wherever they were. They would recite these prayers. But as you know, as you recite these same prayers every day, after a period of time, they lose some of their freshness. It becomes ritual. You begin to just mumble and get them through. They had done the opposite, the scribes and the Pharisees. When they prayed, they would pray every word and syllable very clearly so that when they prayed, you would look at them and say, wow. But it was just ritual.

Here's the second thing. They developed prescribed prayers for every occasion. Now, on the surface, nothing wrong with that. They had prayers for light, prayers for dark, prayers for good news, prayers for bad news, prayers for victory, prayer for defeat, prayer for rain, prayer for sunshine, prayer for fire, prayer for snow, prayer for everything. But what had happened is, again, those specific prayers had done two things. The one is, they'd just begun to fade away in meaning. The second one effect was our third point of their fault, and that was, they were limiting their prayer to a specific time and place. So they prayed faithfully morning, noon, and night. But here's what we learned from Paul. What's Paul say? Pray

The Characteristics of Hypocritical Prayer

They loved long prayers. They loved those long, drawn-out prayers. Jesus warns, in fact, Mark 12:40, Jesus says, "Watch out for those scribes and Pharisees who, for appearance's sake, offer long prayers." Long, ongoing prayers, not about communion with God, but long prayers for appearance's sake.

Here was the last thing. There was meaningless repetition in these prayers. We'll talk about that specifically when we get down to verse 7, when He says, "When you pray, do not use meaningless repetition." Their prayers just went on and on and on, and they prayed the same thing every day. It became ritualistic, and although the prayer in and of itself may have some meaning, it had long since lost its meaning. It was just a prayer that you prayed. They were just words that you said.

I've got no horse in this race at all. Just let me make a point. I have had, I don't know how many people say to me, "I pray the prayer of Jabez every day." I don't know the prayer of Jabez. I can look it up for you here. I don't know it. I haven't read the book. I don't know any of that stuff about it, so I'm not taking a shot at that at all, although it may sound that way.

But here's the prayer of Jabez. First Chronicles 4:10: "Jabez called on the God of Israel, and he said, 'O that thou would bless me indeed, enlarge my border, that thy hand might be with me, that thou would keep me from harm, that it may not pain me.'" These people are saying, "I get up every day and say this prayer." Well, there's no way that's as fresh as it used to be, I don't think. See, I can take something right out of this scripture and make it meaningless repetition. No shot there. Please don't email me and talk to me about the prayer of Jabez. I don't care. Pray it if you want to pray it. I'm just saying to you, I don't get it.

I'll tell you the other thing about it. I don't know if you noticed it. I had a singular personal pronoun in there five different occasions: me, mine, me, me, me, me. There are a lot of "me" in there. And that would make me a little nervous too, but you do your own thing.

The Foundation: Matthew 6:1

Here you go. Matthew chapter 6, verse 1 becomes a very important verse. It says, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven." That becomes the introduction for all of these. He says, "Listen, watch out that you're doing these things so guys will see you." And then He talked about giving. Today we look at prayer.

Don't Be Like the Hypocrites

He says this in Matthew chapter 6, verse 5: "And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites." A hypocrite is somebody who pretends to be something they aren't. They're an actor. They play a role. Don't be like those hypocrites.

Well, what were those hypocrites doing? Well, they were drawing attention to themselves by the way that they prayed. Again, I want to come back to this: they were praying. God wants you to pray, but He doesn't want you to pray that way.

Again, that's the problem with religion. Religion so often fails to kill the old self. Religion can quickly become a source of pride, especially some legalistic religion or something with a lot of rules where all of a sudden the old self simply becomes religious. And he does all these things and the old self, which at its guts is pride, never gets killed.

The Normal Practice vs. the Wrong Motive

"When you pray, don't you pray like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners." This was a huge point to me and I just want you to see it. The normal position that a Jew would take for prayer would be to stand. That was their normal position. They wouldn't necessarily kneel; they would stand.

The normal place they'd pray this standing prayer would be in the synagogue. That was a place they went to worship when they couldn't get to the temple. They'd go to synagogue. It'd be a normal place where they worship. It'd be a normal place where they'd hang together. It would be a normal place where there would be civic activities.

It would not at all be unusual for a Jew to pray on the street. Remember what I said at the beginning: when there's a prescribed time, they're stopping. They're praying. Doesn't matter where. Doesn't matter what.

Now here's what I want you to see: don't pray like these guys who are praying in the posture that's okay, who are praying in the place that you'd expect, who are stopping to pray every day. You see that? You see what I'm saying there? They're doing everything that He says is okay to do, but now He says don't do that. Why? Because it's not about that action.

The Heart of the Problem

Here's the secret. "Don't pray like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogue and on the street corner in order to be seen by men." The word that's used there for "street" connotes not just a narrow little way, but a large, huge point where lots of traffic and lots of people.

They would normally pray there. Here's what's happening. These guys are coordinating their schedule so when it's time to stop and pray, they'll just happen to be at 24th and Camelback, and everybody will see them there going through this ritualistic prayer. He said don't pray that way.

A couple ways, I guess my mind's racing here, to go about it. One is to say why would they do that? Because you know, that's not pleasing to God. God doesn't give a rip about that stuff we're going to see Him. Why would they do that?

Here you go. Give it to you real simple. I don't know you. You may be here today for the very first time. You may be one of the students that are here. You may be one of the parents that are here. You may be one of the workers that are here. I don't know, and most of you I don't know from a post, and I acknowledge that. But I know this: I know your sin. I know your besetting sin. I guarantee you what it is: pride. Pride's at the course of everything.

As picky as I might be, I happened to be listening to Caleb this morning, and it's Dove Award night. They've got all these artists there, and they're talking about—I don't mean to nitpick this, I'm not nitpicking—but they ask every woman there, "What are you going to wear? What will you be wearing? What will you be wearing?" They had one of the gals, and she happens to be one of my favorites, and she said, "You know, I just want to get up there and get it all and not trip and not fall." Why? Because we're at the Dove Awards getting an award for the way that we've used our talent to praise Jesus. And what's our biggest fear? What I'm going to wear and will I fall down. Why? Because we care deeply what other people think.

I tell you what, from the time you're old enough to be a kid at five or six, you're concerned about how the other kids look at you, what you wear, what do they think? That's natural. That's okay. You don't want to be awkward and out just to be out. But all of a sudden you grow up and your whole life is embraced in peer pressure.

The Fear of Man

There's a book—I think I brought it, a pretty good book. I'll tell you that it's called "When People Are Big and God Is Small." Pretty good book. I don't recommend books often, but there's a good one. This is an okay one. "When People Are Big and God Is Small," and the whole point that this author is getting at is we live most of our lives far more worried about what people think than about what God thinks.

Just ask you to take an inventory. Have you ever struggled with peer pressure? Peer pressure is simply a euphemism for the fear of man. If you experienced it when you were younger, believe me, it's still there. Are you over-committed? Do you find it hard to say no, even when wisdom dictates you should? You're a people pleaser—another euphemism for fear of man.

Do you need something from your spouse? This is an interesting one. I read it to Susan. She needs to hear this. Do you need something from your spouse? Do you need your spouse to listen to you, respect you? Think carefully here. Certainly God is pleased when there is good communication and a mutual honor between spouses. But for many people, the desire for these things has its root in something that is far from God's design for His image bearers. Unless you understand the biblical parameters for marital commitment, your spouse will become the one you fear. Your spouse controls the spouse who will take the quiet place of God in your life. I did that when I was a non-Christian. I had Susan in a position of God in my life.

By the way, give you another great—I'm in a book mood here—give you a great marriage book called "Sacred Marriage." Somebody sent it to me and said we read it, and I said no, I don't, I won't read. I'm not going to let my reading list be determined by a stranger. So I gave it to a staff guy and said read this for me and mark up the good stuff. Well, somebody has to do this. It's part of their training. And about three days later they came and said this is the best—and this guy's read a lot of stuff—he said this is the best book on marriage I've ever read. "Sacred Marriage." The guy's name is Gary Thomas. I think it's really good. I've still not read it. Susan's going to teach it next year.

Signs of Fearing People More Than God

Is self-esteem a critical concern for you? Here's a couple of them. Have you ever felt like you might be exposed as an imposter? That's a good one. Here's a good one: Do you ever lie, especially little white lies? What about cover-ups where you're not technically lying with your mouth? Lying in other forms of living in the dark are usually ways to make ourselves look better than we really are.

Well, see, that's what's going on with these guys. That's what goes on in most people's lives. It's the fear of men. What are you going to think? What will people think if I succeed? What would they think if I fail? What would they think if the kids have a problem? What would they think? And that's sometimes what even stops us from calling out for help.

We've got premarital counseling at the church. That doesn't make much difference. I mean, he's going to get married no matter what you say to Him, and it just is. They're going to happen. Rarely do they stop, you know. Periodically they'll stop and they won't. But what is really more critical is that first year after marriage counseling. Because what happens is little things pop up, and they're not great big things, but you let them sit for a while. And all of a sudden you don't want to tell anything about it because you've only been married six months and you're going to sound like a real goofus if you're already in trouble six months into this thing. What is all that? Fear of man. Either fear of what they'll think or the desire to have them praise you.

Jesus Addresses the Heart Issue in Prayer

That's what's at the heart of these Scribes and Pharisees, and Jesus spends a boatload of time here on this, virtually from past the Beatitudes all the way through halfway through chapter 6. Why? Because that's our natural flinch. Our flinch is to care what other people think. Jesus says, "Don't you pray in a way where you're drawing attention to yourself. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full." They're done. I'm done with these guys. Their reward is the praise of men.

"But I say to you, when you pray, go to your inner room, and when you shut yourself the door, pray to your God who is in secret, and your Father who sees you in secret will repay you."

The Challenge of Literal Interpretation

This presents a little bit of a problem for me in this sense. I take the Bible literally. Many of you in here do. Does that mean that every time I pray I'm to go to a prayer closet? The word for closet here is just a small place like a storage closet and pray. That doesn't seem to fit because we know—nor is Jesus condemning public prayer—because we know He prays publicly. Matthew chapter 14, when you have the loaves and fishes...

The Heart Behind Private Prayer

The fishes and the feeding of the 5,000 - Jesus stops there and prays before all these people. We're told that the church early on in Acts chapter 4 lifted their voice with one accord. In 1st Timothy 2, Timothy's told along with the church to pray. What Jesus is saying here is to guard your heart and if possible pray in private rather than in public. Don't even tempt yourself with all the adulation that may come from public prayer.

Jesus is driving here toward the condition of your heart, not the physical place that you pray. The Father is in secret. That doesn't mean that He's not there. That means that there's this intimate relationship that He sees us in secret.

God Never Betrays a Confidence

Here's a great insight. One of the authors says this about the phrase "sees in secret": God also sees in secret in the sense that He never betrays a confidence. Many things we share with God in our private prayers are for Him alone to know. Confidence we share, even our deepest loved ones or closest friends may sometimes be betrayed.

Have you ever had somebody where you say, "Okay, I'm going to tell you this, but you can't tell anybody?" And before you get back, the cell phone's ringing with 15 people who said, "Man, I heard about what happened." I happen to be somebody who's pretty closed mouth. I don't talk to many people, mostly because I don't think they need to know. Secondly, because I just don't trust people.

Listen, I just don't think you can have many secrets. The old thing: if you want a secret, tell two other people and then kill them. That's how you're going to get the secrets. That's the only way you're going to find it. People love to talk about gossip and what happened, don't they? Don't they in your office love to talk about gossip and love to talk about what happened? All of a sudden you've got this person - you're in the middle of some hurt and pain and you pour your heart out to them, and the next thing you know, you're the laughingstock of the whole place.

You can pour your heart out to God and He'll never betray that trust. That's a huge deal. That means I can say anything that's on my heart in prayer and I'll never be betrayed here. He sees me in secret, He hears me, and my reward, He'll repay me there.

Against Meaningless Repetition

Verse 7: "When you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words." Here He doesn't even talk about the scribes and the Pharisees. We know they did it. He's talking about the Gentiles, the non-Jews. One of the things that these pagans did was pray and pray and pray and pray for long periods of time.

Remember back in 1st Kings chapter 18 when Elijah is going to challenge the followers of Baal. Remember he challenges them to this idea where they're going to take an ox, kill it, put it on the wood, and see if God starts fire or not. And he says, "All right, you guys go first. Pick your ox, do the thing, do the whole deal, and pray." And it says that they prayed all morning, they prayed all noon, they prayed and they called out loud, and they danced, and they prayed, and they made long repetitious prayers.

In fact, Elijah mocks them. This is great. In verse 27: "Elijah mocked them and said, 'Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god. Either he is occupied or gone aside, or is on a journey, or perhaps he's asleep and needs to be awakened.'" That idea "occupied" - some of you know what that means. It means literally maybe he's on the toilet. Your God is taking a little potty break here. And of course, Elijah calls down the fire.

Examples of Meaningless Prayer

He's saying, don't pray in this meaningless way. It's hard to address this without some illustrations. The Buddhists have their prayer wheel. I saw a guy, and this is extraordinarily judgmental and not meant to offend anyone. I'm from a Catholic background, so I've prayed many rosaries in my life, and I will tell you in my own heart that became, for me, quick, meaningless repetition. I was at the airport the other day, and there's a guy sitting there, much like a scribe and a Pharisee, it seemed to me, with his beads praying, and I could not help but think of these guys. I found it offensive - meaningless repetition.

Well, unless we cast stones at other people, because that's what everybody goes to - rosaries and everything else. Hey, how about you? Maybe you pray this way. The food comes, and you say, "Father, we bless this food. Use it to the strengthening of our body, nourishment of our body, for Your honor and Your glory. Amen." Ever done that one? And you're right in the middle of a conversation about the Diamondbacks, and you say, "Let me pray," and you go through the whole routine, "Amen," and you go, "Well, let me tell you, I was at the gate..."

A Child's Honest Prayer

Great illustration I had with Sarah. Sarah was about five, maybe, at the time. She's on my lap one night, and it's time to go to bed, and I said, "Hey, it's time to go to bed." And you never had to fight with Sarah. Sarah was one of the great kids, because I think our bedtime was like 8:30 for the girls, and Sarah would come in about 8:15, and she'd go, "Is it okay if I go to bed?" So she was perfect for this.

Well, she's on my lap one night, and I said, "It's time to go to bed," and I said, "Let's say prayers," and she said, "Okay." This is exactly what she said. She's sitting on my lap. I said, "Here, you pray first." She goes, "All right, pull the string." And I said, "What?" She said, "Pull the string." I said, "What? Pull the string?" And I went up on her shoulder and imaginarily pulled it, and she goes, "Father, thank you for Mom, thank you for Dad, thank you for this..." And I thought, what a great illustration of how we

It's real easy to load your gun and start firing out there, but why don't you turn it around and look inside before you go head-on for all this. And make sure you understand this. Jesus is not condemning here genuine repetition of request. Paul said three times about the thorn in the flesh. Jesus goes to Gethsemane and prays, goes against the disciples, wakes them up, goes to pray again.

I don't think there's anything wrong with coming again and again and again. What He's condemning here is mindless, indifferent reciting of prayer, or attaching some sort of abracadabra in the end, which would be something like "in Jesus' name," and that ties it all up, and that gets heard.

He's just saying, listen, when you pray, a couple of things here. Don't pray like these guys did, because they prayed, and their heart wasn't right. Their motives weren't pure. They wanted you to see them. That's all they cared about. Secondly, when you pray, don't just go through the motions.

Prayer Done Correctly Is Hard Work

That's a hard thing. I'll tell you what, prayer done correctly, I think, is a lot of work. It's a lot of work to make certain that I'm fresh and focused. That's why it's good, I think, to make a few notes. It's good to have those things clear in your mind. It's good to have some sort of a general pattern or outline.

You know that old acronym, ACTS: Adoration and Confession, and Thanksgiving and Supplication. But even that can quickly fall into a pattern, because they go, "Well, Father, I really adore You in heaven, and I confess my sin to You. I'm thankful for all You do, and here's what I need. Amen, in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, in Jesus' name." That's what He's saying. He's saying, watch out for all of this.

Verse 8: "Therefore, do not be like them, for God knows what you need before you ask Him." Now, that's an odd one. God knows what you need. Isn't that true? Why is that a problem? If God knows what you need before you ask Him, then I'm saying, oh, why am I asking Him? Is that what He's saying?

Prayer Is About You, Not Him

Here's why. Because prayer is about you, not Him. Martin Luther said this: "By our praying, we're instructing ourselves more than we're instructing Him." All of a sudden, when I pray, God's working in my life. God's working in my heart.

I hadn't been a Christian very long, and I heard Josh McDowell speaking, and he was talking about prayer. I'm not sure what words he used, but my words would be: if my will's here, and God's will here, it's me bringing me over to God's will. It's me aligning myself with God's desire and ideas.

He talked about when he was a young man, a teenager, and he said he wanted a car. He's riding the bus. It's hard to pick up girls in a bus. You know, come on, hey, baby, I got the bus. I got my dad's bus tonight. So he wants this car.

Josh McDowell's Mustang Story

So he goes to a godly old guy, and the guy said, "Have you prayed about it?" He said, "Yeah." And he said, "No, have you really prayed about it?" He said, "Well, not really." He said, "I want you for two weeks. I want you to go to God every day specifically and pray specifically about this car."

So he said it went something like this. The first day he went in, he said, "Father, thank You. I'm glad I can be here. God, I want to tell You, I need this Mustang. God, I need this Mustang bad. I want it bad. I got to be honest with You, God, it's what I really want."

Second day, he's saying, "God, I need that Mustang. It's the red one. I don't know if You may assume You know this, but it's the red one down at 3rd and Main. I need that one. It's down there, God. I really need that."

It goes on for a while. By the end of the first week, he's saying, "God, I really need that red Mustang. You know, I don't know if You know. I'm riding the bus. And I have social needs, God, and I really need that Mustang." And he's telling his friend about it. He says, "You've got to be more specific. Describe the Mustang. Just pray." He said, "All right."

By the middle of the second week, he's going, "God, I need that Mustang. I think You know it. It's the one that's got the fender, the right rear fender's kind of beat in a little bit. And the wheels look like they may be out of alignment." He said, by the end of the second week, he's going, "God, I'm not sure, but maybe fixing that car isn't more expensive than buying it's going to be. I'm getting to work on the bus, and somehow I'll be OK. God, keep the car."

Well, you see how that works? Does it always work that way? I don't know. But I find that when I'm praying, most often it's about, it seems to me, it's about me lining myself up with God's will.

Personal Example: Haley's Test

Haley had a huge test. Haley has two huge tests. Haley's got a lot going on. Got the wedding coming up June 28th. She's got two huge tests. She's got to get past these two tests. If she doesn't pass these two tests, we lose some serious time in school.

And so I don't understand these tests, obviously. But it's a real strange thing. She'll take the test, and all you get back is a grade. You never get the test back. You don't know what you got right. It's stupid to me. They're very lucky it wasn't Sarah taking this, or she'd be emailing the chancellor explaining this is a stupid way to try to teach us something. But they got Haley. They're lucky.

Haley took the test Monday. She needs 210 points, this whole 210 points. And she's in there at 9 o'clock Monday. At 9 o'clock Monday, I'm saying, "You know, God, help her. Let's get her through this thing. This is one of those things that we got to, God, You and I both know, school's stupid. Let's get us through this thing. Get us through to the other side."

And about 10:30, I was in a meeting, and I thought, I wonder how Haley's doing. And I said, "Father, You know, she's been in there now an hour and a half. She can only have another hour and 20 minutes. God, just help her. Give her wisdom. Give..."

Her insight. So she came home. I said, "How was it?" She said, "Oh, it was awful. Right in the middle, I had a real problem." I said, "About 10:30?" And she said, "Yeah, about 10:30. We had a little thing." I said, "I was praying for it." She said, "There's no way, Dad. It was really hard." And I said, "I might have done OK. I did OK." Anyway, she said, "We don't know until Friday." I said, "That's stupid. That's like cheerleading tryouts. Just take the scan and scan it."

So I come in last night. I drive in last night. She's sitting out front. This is a sign. And she says, "I passed. I had 212 points." I said, "Hey, baby, doesn't matter. Still looks like a birdie on the scorecard to me. It doesn't matter how you hit it. It's a two, babe. Chip it in, knock it in. It's a two."

I find myself praying more and more that way and even saying, "God, even in that, God, if it's not Your will, if You don't want her to pass, don't." That's what He's saying. When He's saying, He said, "You're praying this way. He knows your needs. But this isn't about your needs and you and Him. This is about your needs and you and what are really needs."

The Model Prayer

So then He says this: "Pray this way." We got seven minutes. "Pray then in this way: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." And then some of your translations will include, "For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever."

It's what we identify as the Lord's Prayer. Those of you who have been around for a while know that that isn't the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is recorded in John 17. If you want, I've challenged you with this before. If you really want to do a good study, study the Gospel of John chapter 14, 15, 16, and 17. That's Jesus the night before He dies, speaking to His disciples and in a sense speaking to you. And then in John 17, there's the Lord's Prayer. You want to know what Jesus prayed and how He prayed it, it's John 17.

The Disciples' Prayer

What you've got here is the disciples' prayer. This is not how Jesus prayed in and of itself. In other words, these words, it's not the Lord's Prayer. He says this: "Pray in this way." It means literally pray in this manner. Pray along these lines. Here you go. This is a model.

Interesting to me, nowhere in the New Testament do we ever see a believer pray what we call the Lord's Prayer or the Our Father. We never see this prayed. So apparently they got it. We don't always get it. I used to attend a church where every week they would pray this prayer. One week they didn't and boy, in come, you can imagine those of you that are around this stuff, in come the notes why we didn't pray this prayer. And it's always amused me that that comes right after He says, "Don't use meaningless repetition." There's almost a sense in which this prayer has become one of the exhibit A's of meaningless repetition for many.

In Luke's Gospel, he records this. Let me just read it to you: "And it came about while He was praying in a certain place. After He'd finished, one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray.'" And again, and these are not cheap shots, I hope. He didn't say, "Well, Jabez." He didn't go back. And I'm not trying to beat that horse. I'm just saying when they came and said, "Teach us to pray," He said, "Well, when you pray, you do this. Father," it's the same prayer. It's a model prayer.

Not the Prayer, but the Model

When you're saying, "How does God want you to pray?" This is how He wants you to pray. This is the model. It's not the prayer He wants you to pray. Is it all right? Sure. But He wants something deeper than this.

So we're going to take one second today. I want to just emphasize, look how it talks about relationship. "Our Father," there's a relationship between a father and a child. There's an intimacy in that.

Understanding the Cultural Context

I had breakfast the other day with a guy who's a pastor in South Africa and a very, very, very, very poor area. He's the only white guy with, I think he said, three quarters of a million Africans. The only white guy. And a pastor and he's apparently loved there. He said, "You know, because I make the announcement on Sunday. If you've got a cell phone, turn that thing off or bring it up here and we're going to beat it with a hammer." OK? I do it a little different than that. But turn the cell phones off. If you have children that become fussy, take them out, you know, because it's a disruption.

He said, "Our culture, that would never fly." He said, "Here's what we've got." And literally, remember the old "it takes a village"? He said, "In our culture, the mom and dad may give birth to this kid, but the kid is really part of the community." He said, "If we're in church and there's a kid who's acting up or you're anywhere and a kid acts up, the closest woman will grab him and begin to breastfeed him. Whether it's mom or not. Whether they're milk or not. They'll just start to breastfeed him. So if you're walking down the street and there's a kid misbehaving, you just take your belt off and whip that kid. It doesn't matter whether it's yours or not." I said, "Well, Goldberg and Osborne would love that one. All over us on that deal."

But here's what he said. He said, "Never would a child speak to the father. Never. This child would never speak directly to the father. Always if the child had to speak, it would speak to the mother and through the mother." So when I say "Our Father" and praying to God and praying to Father, that's a very difficult concept for them. To these Jews, it's a hard concept in the sense that "Father," and you know the equivalent, "Daddy," they didn't have that intimate relationship.

The Foundation of Prayer

This whole prayer is predicated on you and me having a deep, intimate relationship with the Father. Do you know Him? We've made a joke out of prayer. We've made a joke out of it in many instances.

I was flipping through TV the other night and there's somebody and Madonna's getting ready to go out for a concert and she's got all these people standing around praying. There's no way on the planet. Larry King is an agnostic. I don't say that, he says it. That's a guy that doesn't have the courage of being an atheist.

Larry King is an agnostic. In other words, Larry King says, "I don't have enough evidence to believe there's a God." A book or two ago, he wrote a book on prayer. How does that work? Prayer is intimate communication between the child and the daddy.

Our Father - Personal Yet Corporate

When I pray, I pray "our father." Again, notice the absence of the plural personal pronoun or the singular personal pronoun. It's plural here so He seems to be talking about this to you and me as a group, but to you individually, you are my father. You're in heaven. You're not here. You are my father, dad.

Now that can get overly familiar. He addresses that and we'll look at it next week, but let's stay on that for a second. We've probably got a minute or two left.

The Security of Knowing Our Father

If He's my dad, this removes all sorts of the fear. And by fear I mean not reverence or respect, but I mean that trembling. These pagans had gods who they feared constantly. I don't have to fear that. All of a sudden my dad, if I know Him, takes away the uncertainties.

When the girls were young, when we get some of those thunderstorms in the summer and there'd be that cracking and then flashing and they would come sprinting down that hallway and they would get in and they'd say, "Just dad, dad, hold me. Just hold me dad. I'm afraid. Dad, hold me." I'd say, "Man, I'm clinging to your mom on this one. This is a big one. I'm scared myself." And I mean so many times I'd pick them up and I'd be holding them and I'd say, "What are you afraid of?"

See, we can't take uncertainty out of circumstances, but there's something about knowing that God's in control and that He's my dad and then He loves me in a pure way, more than I love myself, that the uncertainty of life is gone in the sense of He's going to take care of it. I'm not lonely anymore. He'll never leave me or forsake me. All of a sudden my world is bigger than just me. The selfishness is gone. Now I'm obedient to Him.

The Heart of This Prayer

That's how He begins this prayer. He said, "I want you to pray this way, with a heart that's pure, not concerned about other people, not in some meaningless repetition, not feeling like you have to pray for hours and hours and hours. I want you to get rid of that."

As you look at this Lord's prayer, He doesn't say a thing about where to pray, a thing about when to pray, a thing about how to pray in terms of diction or in terms of attire. He just simply says, "When you pray, pray this way," and it starts, "Our Father." He's your dad.

You're here today and you're hurting. You're here today and you're a little uncertain. Either you don't know the daddy very well, or you haven't been and talked to Him in a while, because when you do, here's what you're going to hear back from Him: "Everything's going to be okay, because I'm in control."

We'll look at this prayer in its totality next week.

Father, we come before You and we ask You to humble us. Let us be men and women who love You, who follow You, who obey You. God, I pray for those that are here who don't know You through Your son Jesus, that You touch their heart. And for others, God, would You remind us what an awesome privilege it is to call You Father. God, thank You for that. Use us, that's what we ask, to glorify You. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.