The Posture of Prayer - Matthew 6:5-8

Welcome to God's Word for You from Ministry of Sharon Arby Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today and we pray that you'll be blessed by both hearing God's Word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart. Well please go ahead and turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6 and this morning we'll be looking at Matthew chapter 6 verses 5 through 8. You can find Matthew chapter 6 verses 5 through 8 on page 853 of your Pew Bibles. Here now, the reading of God's Word from the New Testament. And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, 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 received their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room. And when you have shut the door, Pray to your father who is in secret, in the secret place. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetition as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them. For your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him.

We'll end the reading of God's word there. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Well, there's a drought in America. There's a drought in America in some places, as we know, not like it was here this spring. It's not from rain. There's a drought in America of prayer. Statistics are clear that our generation today, our day and age now pray significantly less than our fathers, our grandparents, and our great-grandparents prayed. Americans, as a culture, pray less and less and less. But it's interesting, I find it interesting at least, There's something that's increased more and more and more in America.

And that's the 24-hour news cycle. Some of you are old enough to remember when, at a certain time, TV channels stopped running their programming. But now, all day, every day, any time, you can have your fear stoked by any news channel you want. And how often do Christians, maybe even you, find yourself rooting for your side on the news cycle? Finding yourself upset at the other side because of the news cycle? And let me ask you, how often, when you have watched that news cycle, do you pray about it?

How often in your own spiritual, personal life have you wanted and longed to be closer to God? Have you felt your heart becoming cold to God and you wanted to become closer? I'm going to suggest to you today that the way you draw near to God and how we fix this imbalance in our culture is by drawing near to God in prayer. Drawing near to God in prayer. And that's your call this morning, is to draw near to God in prayer.

And if we're going to draw near to God in prayer, the first thing we need to do is going to be hard. We need to stop playing around with prayer. We need to stop playing around with prayer. Look with me at verse 5, what Jesus says. And when you pray, by the way, Jesus is assuming if you're a disciple of Christ, you're going to pray. Verse 5, and when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites.

For they love to pray standing in the synagogue and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men." See, there's a reality of what was happening in the culture at that time that Jesus is talking to the Jewish people living in and around Galilee, is that every once in a while, someone would stand up at the front of the synagogue, in front of the Torah scroll, and they would be asked to pray. Or somebody would go into the street corners in ancient Rome. During this time, there was always a main road through town and a side road that connected to it. And where those two places met was where all the market happened, where all the people were. And certain Jews, scribes, Pharisees, other Jewish people would stand up on that street corner and preach. Is there anything wrong with praying or with preaching? No. No. There would be nothing wrong with them getting up in front of the synagogue and praying, or reading the Torah scroll, or standing up on the street corner and preaching.

But what is the heart motive that Jesus is pointing out here? What is the issue that Jesus is putting his finger on? And that's the second half of verse 5. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. This is showboat religion. This is not drawing near to God with their hearts. This is displaying it so everyone can see. And Jesus has one word to label that type of praying. Hypocrisy. Hypocrites. Hupokristes is what it is in the Greek. It's the idea that Hupokristes in the Greek is an actor.

Somebody who goes up on stage and gets all the light put on them so everybody can come and watch them. They're really one way. in life, but when they get up on stage, they put a mask on and they play another role. That's what Jesus says these people are. If people are getting up in the street corners and they're praying loudly, or they're getting up in the synagogue and they're praying loudly, so all the limelight is on them, so all the attention is on them, who is the attention not on? They're self-aggrandizing. Me, me, me, me.

But did that sound like Elijah's prayer? Did that sound like the prayer of a believer that we read in 1 Kings chapter 18? Or go throughout the Psalms and see of how they sing of God's praises? The Psalms are prayers. And prayers are meant to be brought up to God.

Not to be displayed for everyone else to see. Again, this isn't necessarily the point that somebody shouldn't pray in public. Jesus prayed in public after he said this. The Apostles prayed in public after he said this. This does not mean that preaching shouldn't happen on the open streets. The Apostle Paul did that. The Apostle Peter did that.

So that's not what this is talking about here. It's the hard issue. It's the motive of wanting the reputation of piety without the reality of holiness. This played out in Scotland a couple centuries ago with a pastor, I'm not going to name what denomination it was in, but it's very near and dear to us, where a pastor was the congregation worried about the spiritual nature of their pastor. And they wondered, does he even pray? And so this congregation did something that would be pretty audacious. I'm surprised they did it. If you did it with me, I might be a little scared, but maybe it would give me a healthy check.

They stood outside his window. secretly and waited to hear or see if he would pray. And for a number of days, they never saw him pray. And they fired their pastor for lack of spiritual prayer. In their minds, this pastor was coming up every Sunday and was preaching at the front of the synagogue without entering into his secret room.

There's a reality that our hearts need to be in prayer. That this is about lifting up the Lord and not bringing the limelight on us. So if we are going to draw near to the Lord in prayer, first we stop playing around with prayer. First we put the limelight on who it should be, the Lord who is God, not ourselves. Jesus tells us how to do that. Look with me at verse 6. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room. And when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place. For your Father who sees in secret rewards you openly. Jesus says, don't...

Get off your soapbox. Get off the stage. Don't go to the doorway of your house, where your neighbors might still be able to see you. Don't go into your living room, where others still might be able to see you. Go into the inner room of your house. If you have your King James Version, it might say, go into your prayer closet. Go to the place that nobody's going to go looking for you unless they need a clean pair of underwear. Go to that place and shut the door. Shut the door to your closet and there in the secret place where it's just you and the Lord, that's where you pray.

Why? Because there in the secret place, it's just you and the Lord. That's the point. It's not the world around you who's a spectator on your prayer life, but it's you with your soul breathing out to God. all of his joy, all of his adoration, all of your confession, your thanksgivings, and all of your prayer requests.

It's in the secret place with the Lord that you're able to let your hair down, where you're able to expose your faults and plead with God to cleanse you from the sins that only you know that are in your heart. It's in that secret place of prayer where you'll find communion with the Holy Spirit.

We find this in the life of Jesus over and over and over again. Jesus is swarmed around by people. Crowds come around Jesus. And what does it seem like Jesus always wants to do when a whole bunch of people want to get around Him? He wants to get away from them. He teaches them for a little bit. He heals them. He cares for their needs. And then He needs to get away. Mark talks about this when Jesus arose very early in the morning before the sun was up and departed to a desolate place. And there He prayed. If the spotless, sinless soul of Jesus Christ needs to find a secret place without anyone else to go commune with His Father, how much more do we? How much more do you?

You need to go to that desolate place in your life, that desolate place where you know people aren't going to come to find me here, and go and pray to your Father. Will you go to your inner secret room? If your walls, if the walls of your house could give testimony, would they witness to you praying? If the floors of your house could bear witness, would they give witness to your knees kneeling in prayer to God? Are you praying? Are you finding that secret place? Does this mean that you need to go into your house and set up a special room for prayer and that's all you do in that room? You only pray in that room? You don't do anything else?

Well, for some of us, we might need that. If you have kids, you might want to soundproof that room. But that's not what this is talking about, necessarily. This isn't an identified location. Now, I will suggest to you that many of our houses have entire rooms designed for our TV, but no room for holiness.

You might want to think about our priorities. But the point is, do you find a place in your life where you set aside the time and the place where you are going to intentionally develop your relationship with God, where you can draw near in prayer to your Lord? Are you going to your inner room?

Some of you have legitimate concerns. I'm tired. Tired. I'd encourage you to strain your eyes awake. If you need to stand up while you pray so you don't fall asleep, stand up. It's amazing if you kneel down in prayer how often your knees will hurt and will keep you awake. Do it on some hardwood instead of on some carpet. But will you pray? Will you even in your tiredness pray to the Lord? Some of you might say, but this is great, Pastor Brian, but I'm busy.

I mean, there is things to do. If you looked at my schedule, I have to put in the five minutes a day for me to drink water. For some of you, that's a reality. You have busy lives. Your grandkids have a place to go. Your kids have things to do. You have work pressures on you. Your spouse wants your time. The question is, Are you putting priority in drawing near to God? It's your choice. You control the majority of your schedule. You might not control what time you have to be at work, but you control what time you wake up in the morning. Will you devote time to go to your inner room to draw near to God in prayer? Will you pray to Him?

But just because we pray, there's a type of prayer that God does not find pleasing to Him. There's a type of praying that the Lord is not looking for, and that's what we find in the next verse. Look with me at verse 7. And when you pray, Do not use vain repetitions as other heathens do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words." See, when you pray, we aren't called to pray without our hearts or our minds in it. We're after quality, not quantity here.

If you think that somehow you're going to set a tomato timer or something and it's going to go off at 10 minutes and you're just going to make sure you pray for 10 minutes every day, but your heart isn't into it, but your mind isn't there, and you're just saying the things you're supposed to say, but you aren't feeling the things you're supposed to feel or knowing it in your very soul, God's not interested in that.

That's what he says here. He says that's what the pagans do. That's what the prophets of Baal were doing in 1 Kings chapter 18. Do you remember what they were doing? They were praying fervently and fervently and fervently and fervently and fervently and fervently and fervently and fervently. One, they have the wrong God. Two, they think if they just keep doing it, God will listen to them. No, God's not interested in mindless prayers. He wants you to be mindful of Him. He wants you to have targeted in, zoned in on the Lord. He wants your heart and he wants your mind.

When you're in your prayer room, when you are in that secret place of prayer, look, there are times when you pray when you won't have the words to speak because the pain is that real. There will be times when the grief so overwhelms your soul that you don't know how to express it in words.

The Lord finds that prayer more pleasing in His sight than all the babbling and murmuring in the world. In a few weeks, over the next few weeks, we're going to be looking at the Lord's Prayer. And as we look through the Lord's Prayer, there is a temptation that we can just say the Lord's Prayer from memory, but without any heart. We can say the Lord's Prayer as if this is a magic potion, hocus pocus, God's going to listen to this prayer just because they're the right words. Jesus is prefacing the Lord's Prayer with His words this morning.

It's about your heart. Are you drawing near to God in prayer? Are you going to your secret place and pouring out your soul to Him? Now, if you've been a Christian for more than five days, you know that every time you enter that secret place of prayer, you aren't all happy and rainbows and sunshine. There's a reality to the Christian life that sometimes when we pray it feels like the floor of heaven is concrete and her prayers just can't penetrate them. It's not about what you feel. It's about what you know who the Lord is. There are going to be times in your life where you just don't want to pray.

Whether that's because you're angry with the Lord, whether that's because you're just apathetic, whether that's just because you're tired, let me encourage you, confess that to the Lord in prayer. There might be times where you're coming to the Lord in prayer and you're struggling with a heart of disbelief. Jesus is clear when we're able to say, Lord, I believe, help my disbelief.

This is the place where you can go and your soul can breathe to the Lord and you can say, Lord, my heart is as hard as a rock and I don't want it that way. Soften my heart by your Holy Spirit. I don't know why. This is the place where you can do that.

When you are alone with God, you are able to say, Lord, I want to pray to you, I want to sing your adorations, I want to worship you, but I am just so angry at my spouse and my kids right now. It is in prayer that you can confess that to the Lord and pray that He will give you the fruits of the Spirit. That He would kill that sin within you by His Holy Spirit and that He would grow you in holiness. If you're going to draw near to God, it starts in your prayer closet.

It starts by going to Him, not where everyone can see, not in all the limelight, not just when you're sitting down for a meal so your family thinks that you're holy. Who are you when no one else is watching? Are you going to the Lord in prayer? Are you offering to Him the praise of your lips? But there's a great comfort and confidence, lastly. A great comfort and confidence that the Lord gives us here in this last verse, verse 8. Look with me there. Therefore, do not be like them.

For your Father knows the things that you have need of before you ask Him. Now we're going to be spending all next week on our Father who is in heaven, but I want to leave you with this last bit of confidence and encouragement as you go to your prayer closets this week.

When you pray to the Lord, He is nearer to you than your very breath. Children, when you pray to God, He knows what you need before you even pray it. God is not an aloof God somewhere off who doesn't care about you. God knows every hair upon your head and is deeply interested and loving in how he was going to grow you and develop you and make you more and more like his son because he has begun this good work in you and it's by prayer as one of the means that he is going to bring it about to perfection. Are you coming to your father? with confidence that you don't need to babble like the pagans. You aren't seeking your reward in front of men, but you honestly want to draw near to God.

I'm going to challenge you this week, if you have been neglecting your prayer life, I'm going to challenge you this week to try to pray every day. Again, we're not about Quantity here. Let me challenge you. In the morning and in the evening, will you pray to God? Will you follow the way of Christ? Again, it's not about quantity. The thief on the cross shows us how short a heartfelt prayer can be. Lord, when you enter your kingdom, remember me. And the Lord right next to him remembers that prayer and gives him assurance.

Will you, this week, at least once a day, pray? I'm challenging you to walk away from here, not just being a hearer of these words, but to be a doer of these words. Not just to be one who goes in one ear and out the other, but will you actually clasp your hands, close your eyes, bow your head, and pray to your Father in Heaven? Go to him in prayer this week. Don't play around with it. Don't do it in front of everyone. Go to him in prayer.

Closing Prayer

Draw near to your God, and he will draw near to you. Let's pray. Oh God, what a good God you are, gracious and loving. Father, apply these words to our hearts by your Holy Spirit. Let us be a praying people. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon Arpey Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His Word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.