Prayer “Lord, teach us to pray”
BibleClass.com.au Teaching Series Series: The Lord’s Prayer / The Sermon on the Mount Part: #1 of 6 Main Scripture: Matthew 6:5-10 Teacher: Dr Paul Iles Date: 14.10.2012
Inline, direct scripture quotes are italicised. Block quotes are indented. The New King James Version is used unless otherwise stated. This transcript has undergone minor editing to ensure readability.
The MP3 audio of the study upon which this transcript is based and a learning guide are available from http://bibleclass.com.au/
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Introduction to & Relevance of the Lord’s Prayer
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oday’s section is Matthew 6:5-13, and I think we may well learn a lot because we’re going to think about and learn about our prayer life. We will actually learn how to pray. You may say, “Well I know all about that,” but I think that by the time we’ve had another look at this we may have learned some things and discovered some things that we didn’t know about. Remember this: that if you go to the other gospels, we read that the disciples came to the Lord Jesus and they saw him praying and they said, “Lord would you teach us how to pray” [cf Luke 11:1]. They obviously had been used to Him praying because He had gone away in the night – sometimes He spent all night in prayer - and He prayed in many other situations; in many circumstances, and they must have wondered, “What is he doing? What is He saying? Why is it so important to Him?” And, “There is something different about what He is doing to the way that we think.” So really this is spoken in response to a question that they asked Him – “teach us how to pray” – and so we will discover the meaning of it and what we should do. As I said, most of us probably think that we already know all about praying. It’s so easy, we think, and we sort of say, “well just get on with it” and we don’t think twice about it and there’s not much to learn from it. This isn’t true. We’re going to discover in verses 5-13 that there’s a real structure of instruction as to how we pray; as to what we pray for and the priorities of our prayer life. There is instruction on how you approach God, what you mention first; what’s first on your mind, before you move on to the other things that you might be going to pray about. As a further opening comment, I want to say that all the principles of prayer are contained in the instruction here of the Lord Jesus. The only thing He doesn’t teach here is that we should pray in His name. For that reason, some people say, “well this doesn’t apply to Christians today.” Some say it just applies to Israel in a day to come. Some say it’s a prayer only for the disciples. I really would like to dispel that myth before we even start. The reason the Lord Jesus leaves the teaching as to praying in His name until later is that it’s far more appropriate later – they will understand what He means, because He is going to the cross. Every other principle of prayer is set out here. Our prayer life is the most important part of our Christian life – It’s more important than all the other things we do for the Lord. It’s more important than all the church going you can do. That might come as a surprise to you. You can do a lot of things for the Lord: You can do the Lord’s work, you can teach in the Sunday School, help in the Youth Group, serve in the church, preach on the platform, whatever it is, but the most important thing in the Christian’s life is the Christian’s prayer life. So we’ve got to get it right. You will also discover that everything we do in our Christian life is actually easier than our prayer life. You say, “Well that’s a bit sweeping” – you wait until we finish and you’ll see what I mean by that. There are great difficulties associated with prayer. Now, there’s no problem with saying prayer; you can sort of rattle off routine prayers as a ritual and that’s that, but to really pray and realise God, realise His presence and make your requests known; to enjoy it and to come away from it peaceful, restful and glad that you spoke to the Lord is another thing. Ask yourself this morning: number one, how many of us prayed since we’ve got out of bed? Actually, it should be everyone. Number two: how many of us enjoyed that time? Were you really blessed afterwards and changed in your thinking and in your feelings and in your whole attitude to the day because
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you’d spent some time in prayer? Because that’s what prayer is meant to be all about. It’s meant to be an enjoyment, a joy, a blessing. We are asking, yet we’re receiving and it’s a changing moment in the day when you really lay hold of what it means to pray. The Lord is going to teach us how to go about prayer so that this is actually realised by us. Ask yourself these questions: “How often do I pray? How often do I enjoy my prayer time? Do I ever find it tedious? Do I ever run out of things to pray for, or run out of words? How much is prayer something that I really value, that I really include as the most important part of my Christian life?” Matthew 6:9-13 will give us clear instructions and guidelines as to how to pray, and in those guidelines lie the answers to these problems that we have brought up. We won’t find it tedious, we won’t find it a waste of time, we won’t pray and after we’ve prayed suddenly discover that we feel just the same about our problems as when we started. That will not happen. And that is why we’re given these instructions on how to pray.
Prayer: What not to do
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he Lord Jesus, as He teaches them, tells them some things not to do. Some definite mistakes that can be made. We are going to start with those, and then we’ll move on to what prayer is all about in a more positive sense according to the Lord Jesus.
Now look at Matthew chapter 6 and verse 5:
The errors Public show
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nd when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites” – you know, people that pretend. People that are on the outside something different to what they are on the inside. Don’t be like that. This is a mistake; a thing you must not do. “For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.” – So, warning number one: the first mistake you can make is to pray being aware of others, wanting to impress them, to give yourself some sort of good reputation or make yourself look Godly and righteous and good. When that is on your mind, the Lord says that is mistake number one. Vain repetition Before we get to the answer for the first mistake, we’ll look at the next mistake that He mentions “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions” – what does that mean? Don’t keep repeating your requests over and over and over and over. It’s a pointless thing. Now, you may feel it necessary to keep on praying about something - that’s different. But if you think you’ve got to get God’s ear by constantly saying the thing over and over and over and that you will prevail in prayer and succeed in prayer if you keep on saying it over and over and over and over, well, that’s what the non-Christian does. If you think about it, every other faith makes a big show of prayers. The mat facing the right direction, the prayer wheel spinning, the hands clasped and the chanting – everybody can see it. Over and over and over… With the same phrases and the same prayers… It’s vain repetition; constantly repeating yourself to no real point or avail. People think it’s necessary,
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so he says to them in verse 7, “do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Because they keep on asking, they think that finally God will awake and listen to their prayers. But He says that is not what prayer is all about.
The remedies Exclusion
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ow let’s go back and find the answers to these mistakes.
Verse 5 said don’t pray to be seen of men. Verse 6 gives the answer, “But you, when you pray, go into your room” – out of sight in other words – “and when you have shut your door,” – it’s not enough to be out of the way, shut the door also – “pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” We looked at what not to do: firstly to be seen of men and secondly vain repetition. The answer to the first one - to be seen of men - is to go into your room, into that private place. Exclude everybody else. Got the idea? I am going there to pray, I am realising what I am going to do, I am shutting other influences out, I am shutting other people out, and I am shutting myself in. Exclusion. Into your closet and you shut that door because you want to exclude everyone else, every other influence and you want to realise who you are speaking to: your Heavenly Father (verse 8). Realisation To build on that, don’t just rush into prayer either. Think before you pray. Realise who you are speaking to. Realise what you are doing. Make it something that definitely, seriously matters, and shut that door to shut out and to shut in. Prayer is something between you and God. Make sure it’s just you and the Lord. Shut everything else out. Realise who you are speaking to: “your Heavenly Father” He says. He is the one who knows what things you need. He even knows that before you ask Him. When you go to your Heavenly Father, go as a child goes to their father. A child goes to their father believing and knowing without any question that the father they’re talking to knows how to do it, is what he says, they can completely rely on him, they can completely believe in and they can completely trust him. You don’t go as a child to a father ready to question his wisdom. That’s not the way a child works. You don’t go wanting to argue. You just go to your father as a child, ready to accept and ready to learn. Now that’s how you go to God in your prayer life. Got it? You go trusting, knowing He is good, knowing He can hear you, knowing He wants to bless you, wanting to learn from Him, accepting the answer that He gives. When you find yourself in that situation of arguing with God about His answers or to give you what you want, you’re not realising that you’ve got a Heavenly FATHER. You’re not going realising who you are speaking to. When you do go the right way, however, He does answer your prayer. Here is says, “He will reward you openly.” Now, just start there before you go anywhere. What did we say?
1. Number one: exclusion. Shut out! Shut in! 2. Number two: realisation. Be aware that you’re praying and it’s serious. This is the most important part of your Christian life: prayer. Realise what you’re doing. Realise who you’re
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speaking to. Okay, so now we have learned what not to do.
Prayer: What to do
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ow I want to remind you: we have here a clear guideline, a clear structure. You’re being shown how to pray, and what to pray for. Please do not just take for granted what’s written here. Some of us have ignored the beauty of the Lord’s teaching on prayer, imagining it as belonging to some other dispensation, to some other group of people or as being just a ritual. It is none of those things. It is a very beautiful instruction.
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n this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” That’s point one and it is vital. Notice that you don’t rush in and tell the Lord what you want? Look at the next one. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts,” – or our trespasses, our sins against others – “As we forgive our debtors.” – Those who have wronged us, trespassed against us, sinned against us – you might say, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us – “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” – Deliver us from evil - “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Realise
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otice you do not mention your needs to start with. It comes a long way down the list. Notice you acknowledge who you’re talking to and you bow before Him. Notice that your prayer is firstly interested in things that relate to God and to His kingdom and to His glory. Then, and only then, you turn and you start to think about your own needs and you bring them before God. Please notice that that is the order that we are instructed to do it in. Mostly we go straight into prayer with our problems and our needs. Afterwards we sort of don’t feel any real peace about it. We don’t feel a new joy. You often don’t feel a burden has been lifted. You raced in with all your troubles and all your problems and all your perplexities and then you thought, “well I’ll have to say it again, or I need to say that I really mean this” and then you stop your praying and you don’t feel any different to when you started. Can you now see what happened? You went in there thinking of yourself. You went in there thinking of your problem. You went in to the presence of God overwhelmed with your problem – serious about it and looking for an answer. That was the thing on your mind. Now, what the Lord is teaching here is that before you come to even talk about your problem, before you allow yourself to be overwhelmed or consumed with what you want or what you need, stop for a moment. Just stop! Think! Be aware of who you are speaking to. Realise He is your Father, and you are coming to a God of endless resources, a God of glory and of power who has got the whole wide world in His hands. Who one day will bring in a kingdom that is splendid and glorious. Who has the power to put down Satan and all his attacks and all his annoyances. Who has got the strength to bring the world back in harmony under the rule of His ruler, the King, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is your Heavenly Father. He is the one who saved you. He is the one who brought you into His family. You are His child. He loves you, He knows all about you. Before you even opened your mouth with your problem, He knew your problem. Before you even asked Him to
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help you, He already had it in His heart to help you. Before you even asked Him for the answer, He already had the answer. He was just waiting for you to come, to show that you depend upon Him, so that you will always remember that you need Him, you will never live without Him and you belong to Him. You are His and He is yours. Then, suddenly, you say, now I’ve got my burden, but oh dear – hasn’t it become small in the light of how big God is? Haven’t you got the thing in its right perspective now? God… My Father… His kingdom… His rule… His power… His might… His strength… The God almighty, He is my Father! Now I can go to Him and I’ve got a right understanding of my problem in the sense that, surely, not only can He fix it or answer my need, but He actually wants to and He is there to do exactly that. If that’s all you got when you prayed – that sense – and you didn’t come away with a clear answer to your problem, you still come away with a great sense of peace. God is my Father. He is able. He knows – He knew before I started. And I come away with the peace of God which is better than understanding, and I am changed and I am grateful that I prayed. And I end up at the end of my prayer ready to give Him thanks and to praise Him for who He is and what He has done. I got off my knees and I faced the real world, and I thought, “This is wonderful, I am a child of God, I have a Heavenly Father, I am in His hands, and everything about me He is interested and concerned about and my God is able.” Prayer isn’t just a recipe where you ask God for what you want and you’ll just get it. Yes, God will always bless you and everything He gives you will be for your good, but prayer is something where you learn about God. Prayer is something where you remind yourself about God. Prayer is something where, at the end of it, you have realised who God is and who you are – His child. Prayer is something where you’ve realised what really matters in the world. What matters in the world? The kingdom of God! Souls being saved! Jesus Christ being honoured and glorified! Imagine living in a world where the name of God is hallowed? Held in reverence and holiness! It’d be wonderful – you’d go to school, work, university, and you just meet somebody on the campus or somebody in the workplace and you say, “isn’t the Lord good?” And the man looks at you and says, “He is!” And the next person is a woman and you meet her and you say, “Isn’t God great?” And the woman says, “He is. God is great!” You meet the next person and say, “Isn’t God to be praised!” And the person looks down seriously and says, “God is to be praised!” That would be wonderful! Absolutely wonderful. Do you know, that is what you’re praying when you say “hallowed be your name” – I’ll explain it to you more later - but that’s what you’re actually praying. That we would have it in the whole world that the name of the Lord is reverenced, held in honour and in awe and everybody respected and recognised and acknowledged Him. The world would be turned upside down! I mean, it’s sport isn’t it to mock at the very existence of God? It’s sport! With all of the people you meet in the world, it’s the general thinking and the mentality. The rulers of this nation despise the name of God. You say, my first prayer is “hallowed be your name” – I want to see these people really recognising who you are and knowing who you are and submitting and bowing to your rule and having the blessing of knowing God as their Father. Now, there are many times in the day when you just may utter a quick prayer and you really mean what you say. That is not so much what I am talking about here. You may often just ask the Lord to help you during a day – you must do that surely many times a day, “Lord help me,” “Lord deliver me from this,” “Lord stop me,” or you may just say thank you – how many times do
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you say thank you to the Lord in a day? Now that’s all normal behaviour for the Christian who is living their life conscious of their relationship with God. But then there comes a time that you set aside for prayer – you deliberately pray. Now, this is the order, if you wish to put it that way, the structure of your prayer life, in your approach to God. How you do it in order to get the fullest blessing out of what it means to pray.
Recollect & Acknowledge
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erse 9 says, “In this manner therefore pray: Our Father…” – see that? I can stop right there. “Our Father.” You haven’t asked for a thing, but you are recollecting, reminding yourself who you are speaking to. You are acknowledging who your God is. You haven’t asked for a thing yet. You’re just quietening yourself down and you’re thinking, “I am speaking to my Father.” This is the relationship that I have with God. He is not far away. He is not distant and disinterested in me. I don’t have to, you know, do some special good works or pray for a specific length of time or say a specific number of prayers before He’ll bother to turn His ear and to hear me. He is my Father. He has got an infinite interest in me as His child. I belong to His family. No decent father ever forgets their earthly children – never! You say, “But some earthly fathers are really bad fathers. My father was a really bad father,” you might say. “I remember him. He was selfish. He was unfaithful. He was never there. He never cared and he still doesn’t. How do I understand this idea of being a father?” Well, it says, “Our Father in heaven,” not father on earth! It immediately classifies or distinguishes the Father to whom you are speaking. Not to our father on earth… And all the memories you’ve got of yours, both good and bad, but He goes up to the next level: “our Father in heaven.” Your Heavenly Father. Do you know in heaven everything is perfect? Do you know in heaven, everybody is fulfilled and satisfied and joyful and at rest. Now, you’re praying to that Father who has an infinite interest in you, an infinite care for you, who only desires to bless you and to do you good. And all I’ve said is, “Our Father…” No, you’re not speaking to the man next door. You’re not speaking to the bloke on the street. You’re not even speaking to, “The bloke up there” as they dare to talk. You are speaking to your Heavenly Father! Your God! And He is in heaven… See, straight away you are recollecting what you’re doing as you are calling upon His name and prayer suddenly becomes a very blessed and a very holy experience, and out of it, as you start that way, will come more and more blessing. So that is point number one. “Our Father in heaven…” Whenever you’re going to pray, stop first. Realise who He is first. Then thank Him for it. What does Philippians say? “Prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” (Phil 4:6) They all go together. You see, overwhelmed with your need and overwhelmed and despairing in your situation, you think “I’ve got to rush right in with all my requests!” No, just go and give Him thanks for all that He is and all that He has done. Do you see how that will calm you and what an effect that will have on you? Suddenly all that tremendous apprehension and anxiety about what you need to be done right now gets put in the right perspective. Now, if you go through the great prayers of scripture you will find always that that is how those great prayers begin. Paul begins, for example, in Ephesians 3:14: “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He reminds himself of who he is speaking to. As he prays for the Ephesians, before he makes a request, he gives and acknowledgement and a recognition and a realisation of the God that He is speaking to and it colours his attitude as he prays from then on. We also must start that way!
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Invoke Who can say, “Our Father?”
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ohn 1:12 says, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God.” Note that it is only those who have received Him.
Now, you will hear today about the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. In other words, God is everybody’s Father and we’re all brothers and sisters together. Now that is not true. That WAS true before sin came into the world. God is now only the Father of every human being in the sense that He gave them life and their origination came from Him, but by birth we’re all “children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). Our father is Adam who sinned and fell, and from then on we belong to the family of wrath! “Your father, the devil,” said the Lord Jesus (John 8:44). Keep in mind that there is this kingdom which is the kingdom of darkness - Adam, the fall, Satan. But if you are truly saved - you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour - then you have a right to call God your Father and He calls you His child and all the blessings of an attitude of a Heavenly Father to His child and His care for His family, all of that becomes yours. But listen, don’t call Him Father if He is not your Father. Go instead and ask Him how you can become one of His children. By the same token, realise if you are saved what it does mean to be His child and to call Him your Father. Our Father of peace, yet holy & true Understand that He is above us and He knows about us. When we go to Him and say, “Our Father in heaven...” Just note: He already knows you by name. In fact, the scripture says that your name is graven on the palms of His hands (Isa 49:16) and that He knows every hair on your head (Luke 12:7) - that’s incredible. He has numbered each one. He knows exactly what you’re going to ask Him for and He hears every word of it. He also knows what you feel and how you feel about what you’re asking. He also knows what you did not say. He knows what you cover up - you can’t cover up before God. He sees everything. He knows if you come into His presence and there is sin in your heart not confessed, He knows about that. He knows if what you’re asking for is a selfish thing - it’s really for yourself and not for Him or the blessing of anyone else. You might not even realise it, but He knows. He knows the intent, the real interest that we’ve got in our hearts. He can judge that because He is our Father in heaven. So you can put the two things together. On the one hand there is joy and peace and such encouragement - there is a relationship with our Father - but that is against the other side of it that He is holy and true and He knows what we say, what we don’t say, what we ask for, why we ask for it and He is a God who would have “truth in the inward parts” (Ps 51:6). On the one hand you go to Him gladly as a child, confident and peaceful, but on the other hand you go to Him with reverence. You also go with thankfulness because He gave you spiritual life. He is also a “consuming fire,” (Heb 12:29) so you go with care. Don’t forget that He sees everything - He has all-seeing eyes. That is why Solomon said in Ecclesiastes that when we go into the presence of God to speak, we should just be careful what we say. He says we ought to put our hands on our mouths - to take care. He says therefore, let your words be few (Ecc 5:2). That doesn’t so much mean to say short prayers, but you don’t have to plead or elaborate and have fancy arguments. So those two things go together - blessing on the one hand, realisation on the other.
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So far we have realised what we are doing. We have recollected who we are speaking to. Then we have called on His name - I’m going to use the three words, “Realisation, Recollection, Invocation” to describe those three things.
Petitions Hallowed be your name
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HEN we start to make our petitions. Notice we haven’t asked for anything yet!
The first petition is this, “Hallowed be your name.” What you’re saying is that you want His name to be reverence. You want His name to be honoured. You want His name to be held holy in the eyes of all. “Hallowed”means to be made holy and reverenced - you desire that all would bow before the true God and worship Him alone. You desire that all would come under His rule, blessing and kindness and influence. When we say, “your name,” we are meaning all that the person is in scripture. In the Old Testament, His name was YHWH or Jehovah. Now, the Israelites so reverenced that name that they never even let it pass their lips. They felt that they were not fit to actually use the real name of the real God in its real depth and in its real intensity. Many of them went so far as to refer to God not by YHWH, but “the name.” That reminded them that this was no ordinary God they had - this was the God of creation, the covenant keeping God and the God of eternity. And as you go through the Bible, you will find that at different places, God has different names: “Jehovah Jireh” - the Lord will provide. “Jehovah Nissi” - the Lord is my banner. “Jehovah Tsidkenu” - the Lord is my righteousness. “Jehovah Shalom” - the Lord is my peace. “Jehovah Raah” - the Lord is my shepherd. Understand now that, “your name” is all that He is, and you want everyone in the whole world to bow down, to honour and revere the only true and living God and praise and worship and live to honour Him. I would love to see that in the nation of Australia! That is worth praying for! It’s what you really want to see - God honoured, and mankind blessed. Imagine going out into the street, meeting someone and saying, “Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide...” And the man says, “Yes brother, thank God for that!” “Jehovah Shalom, the Lord is our peace...” And the woman says, “Yes brother, thank God for that!” “Jehovah Raah, the Lord is our shepherd...” And the children say, “Praise God for that!” Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t it stand the world on end and defeat the powers of Satan and the powers of darkness! The Psalmist wrote, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Ps 34:3). Now that is actually the first petition. “Hallowed be your name.” Your kingdom come
But why, if we all prayed this tomorrow would it not happen tomorrow? Well, the problem is the next petition. The second one flows out of the first. The second is, “Your kingdom come.” That makes you realise what is wrong. There is another ruler, Satan. He rules another kingdom - the ruler of the darkness of this world. He had got mankind under His grip and under His power. Every person is born in that condition. They are born in sin and their father is the devil. And you realise that there is another ruler and another kingdom, and the whole reason that they don’t recognise and honour the name of God is because they’re in another kingdom. Therefore you say, “Your kingdom come.” You want God’s ruler to be in control, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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I will deal with that next week. For now I want you to notice that your prayer has realised who God is, you have shut yourself in with God and it’s just Him and you. Also, you have not yet asked a thing for yourself. You are realising, recollecting, invoking and then praying. END
The other parts of this study are available from http://bibleclass.com.au/
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