THE LORDS PRAYER SERIES

WRONG WAY TO PRAY (III)

Matthew 6:7-8

STUDY (4)

Dr. Paul Ferguson Calvary Tengah Bible Presbyterian Church Shalom Chapel, 345 Old Choa Chu Kang Road, Singapore 689485 July 2010

The gift of prayer is one of the greatest privileges for believers in Jesus Christ. It would be the greatest tragedy for a man who bears the name of Christ yet passes through most of his life ignorant of who God is and what He can do in our churches, in our families, and in our lives. Prayer is like breathing but unfortunately too many believers hold their breath longer than is healthy! Jonathan Edwards pointedly warned, If you have left off calling upon God, it is time for you to leave off hoping and flattering yourselves with an imagination that you are the children of God. All of us need to be taught how to pray as we lack understanding, direction, and guidance, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought (Rom. 8:26). We often take much time in preparing to meet so-called important persons in this world, but little thought how we are to approach the King of Kings. The Lords Prayer and the teaching preceding it shows us how to pray according to Gods Will. THE POWER OF SIN Our Lord taught His disciples explicitly in Matthew 6 that there was a false way to pray before showing there is a true way to pray. In verses 5 and 7, Christ identifies for His hearers the two key errors in the false way of praying of the Pharisees and the pagans around them: (1) Praying ostentatious prayers to be seen of men (v5). (2) Praying without the mind fully engaged (v7) this can be due to carelessness, praying intellectually only, or even praying experientially only. So the first error is an over-concentration on myself rather than God as the object of prayer. Although it is not wrong for our prayers be edifying to hear, prayer is not meant to be primarily teaching any listener pietistic phrases under the pretense of talking to God. The second is to pray mindlessly and to also imagine that the efficacy

of my prayer depends upon my verbosity in prayer. God never weighs the value of prayers by their length or by their intensity. Satan is a master at distracting us to pray with wrong motivation, carelessly, and mindlessly. It is staggering to contemplate the power of sin it can even overcome us right in the presence of God in prayer. As Lloyd Jones put it, It sometimes produces the result that even when we try to persuade ourselves that we are worshiping God, we are actually worshiping ourselves and doing nothing more. After setting forth the second of two common errors in prayer our Lord states in verse 8, Be not ye therefore like unto them. He then goes on to explain why God is not impressed by vain repetitions, intensity, or verbosity in prayer as, your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. We are told that the Lords eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him (2 Chron. 16:9), that at times God often gives before we call (Isa. 65:24), and in grace even more than we petition for (Eph. 3:20). For every hypocrite these are terrible truths. However, for the sincere petitioner this should generate great confidence in his heart when he comes to pray knowing that his Father knows what he needs before he even asks. As Job knew, He knoweth the way that I take (Job 23:10). God does not learn anything and does not need us to inform Him on things He has overlooked in our prayers. God has perfect infinite knowledge of everything, including what we are going to ask before we ask it. WHY PRAY? The question naturally arises: if God has perfect knowledge of everything then why should we pray? The simple answer is because He tells us to and that settles the merits of the exercise (Deut. 22:5; Zech. 12:10; Matt. 6:9; Luke 18:1; 1 Cor. 11:1315; 1 Thess. 5:17; Philp. 4:6; Heb. 13:18; James 1:5). God puts meaning into our lives

not futility so there is clearly meaning in praying. In His wisdom, God has Sovereignly ordained that our prayers are to be part of His working out of His glorious plan for this world. The Puritan, George Swinnock puts it well, God is so gracious that he condescends to converse with poor sinners. Prayer is one of the most pleasant ways he has appointed for us to walk with him. Prayer is our chief duty and brings heaven down to man. There is no duty that has so many promises attached to it, gives more honour to God, or which receives more honor from God. It is a guard to secure the fort of the heart, a porter to keep the door of the lips, and a shield to protect the hands. It perfumes every relation and profits every condition. No one can deprive you of this privilege. Every saint is Gods temple and may pray anywhere. Every house is a house of prayer. It is a sweet savour to God, a terror to the devil, and a shelter to a Christian. There are obvious benefits to prayer for us: (1) The most obvious in Scripture is that prayer works. Prayer can even change the course of men and nations. A striking illustration is 2 Kings 19 when Sennacherib came against Jerusalem. Hezekiah prayed, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand. In the next verse Isaiah came with Gods answer, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard (2 Kings 19:19-20 cf. 1 Sam. 1:19; Matt. 7:7). Spurgeon was once asked the secret of his ministry and he replied simply, My people pray for me. (2) When we approach God in prayer it reminds us how great He is and how insignificant we are. God is glorified in our prayers as the doxologies of worship in the Lords Prayer demonstrate. AW Pink summarises, We pray unto God for the purpose of honoring Him, acknowledging Him to be the Knower of our hearts and the Giver of all mercies. Christ told us that the Father gets glory through our prayers (John 14:13). Indeed, the more who pray for a matter the more glory God gets (2 Cor. 1:10b-11). (3) God delights in our prayers (Prov. 15:8).

(4) Prayer reminds us also that we have many needs, which we cannot meet; and only God can do so (Psa. 86:1). This is needful as indifference would quickly takeover our lives if God simply provided every desire we wish before we took time to ask. Also, our pride often blinds us to how needy we really are. Prayerlessness is a sin as it demonstrates that we now believe we can handle most things on our own. However, Christ did not say, Without Me, you can get along fine for the most part but He said, Without Me, ye can do nothing (John 15:5). As John Bunyan said, You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. (5) Prayer also brings us closer to God and His presence this will change us (Psa. 16:11; 145:18; Exod. 34:29). It makes us more like Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). (6) Prayer builds one up spiritually -Jude 1:20. It is the appointed means to secure Gods help and blessing. Prayer is our supply line to God in the trials of life where we receive abundant grace (Heb. 4:14-16). (7) Prayer makes us more aware of the needs of others as we pray for them. This makes us less self-centred and should remind us that we are part of the great family of God. (8) Christ promises us that when we pray our Father will reward us openly (Matt. 6:6; cf. Psa. 91:15). This can be in many diverse ways as illustrated in Scripture e.g. Gods power, Gods protection etc. HOW TO PRAY THOUGHTFUL PRAYERS? What we are to truly seek is the presence of God not simply keeping our eye on the clock to fulfill some prayer time obligation. Effective and powerful praying is not limited by physical location, theological degrees, or natural eloquence. Neither is it

simply a matter of praying (many do this). True prayer is experiencing communion with the living God. To avoid the error of the heathen, we need to fully engage the mind, will and heart of the whole man in the place of prayer. This can only be done when we see the vital relationship between effective prayer and the Word of God. The Apostle sets this link forth when he exhorts, And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit (Eph. 6:17-18). It is in the Scriptures that God speaks to us, and in prayer we speak to God in response. In the early church when the new converts joined them on the Day of Pentecost, it is notable that they had to continue first in the Apostles doctrine before they were able to continue in prayer (Acts 2:42). A man cannot pray right to God unless he thinks right about God. That can only come through sound doctrine based upon the Word of God. Thomas Brooks says, Prayer is nothing but the breathing out before the Lord, that which was first breathed into us by the Spirit of the Lord. The best way to pray with our mind engaged is to prepare ourselves to pray (Ezra 7:10). As part of this preparation our minds and hearts need to be cleansed with the sanctifying power of the Word of God (John 15:3). We must ensure that we are coming with clean hands and pure hearts (Psa. 24:4) and not praying with wrong motive so e.g. to take pride in the answer, to squander it, and to make a name for ourselves or our churches (James 4:2). Meditating on Gods Word will lead us to want to pray (Dan. 9:2). It will also guide us in our prayers so they are thoughtful and Godcentred. As we pray according to the revealed will of God, as found in the Word of God, then we can pray with confidence and assurance effective prayers. In Acts 4:2430 the early church prayed a prayer in the midst of threatened persecution that was

based on the relevant Scriptural passages concerning their specific need. Clearly, they had thought through their circumstances and searched the Scriptures for guidance before praying a prayer that was saturated with Scripture. George Mueller of Bristol, England, has become famous for his life of faith and prayer. Without public appeals, God through prayer sent enough money and food to him each week to feed and keep as many as 2,000 orphans at a time in over six decades of ministry. Mueller makes clear that he had to learn that the secret to effective prayer was bathing his soul and mind in the Word of God. In his writing on this subject Mueller explains this, Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditation, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lords blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give to prayer but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer. When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I have myself to meditation, but for the profit of 7

my own inner man. The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer.... But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer now in this way..It often now astonished me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning-by-morning is to obtain food for his inner man. WARNING We all need to take heed to the warning that God is never mistaken as to our motives or our thinking in prayer, for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee (1 Chron. 28:9). The age that we live in values image and presentation over motive, sincerity, and truth. We can be tempted to follow this in evaluating our prayer life. Others may have their opinions, but in the end, what matters is Gods verdict on our prayers. Is our prayer life a hypocritical faade to impress others? Do we pray thoughtful biblical prayers?