Matthew 6:5-15
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.[a] 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done,[b] on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread,[c] 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.[d] 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Originally, I was excited to teach on this passage. Learning to pray has been on the top of my priorities over the last couple of months. I've spent time leading a prayer group for Watermark's young adult ministry (The Porch) and have made it a point to be much quicker to run to prayer in times of anxiety, confusion, lack of direction, etc. I figured that I've got this. Hopefully, you're already seeing the problem there, but we'll come back to that. There are a plethora of resources on prayer - sermons, podcasts, audiobooks, you name it. So if I ever hit a roadblock, I'd have some backup. As I was sitting down to drop some knowledge into this devo, I quickly realized that a surplus of resources means that there were a surplus of routes this devotional could take. It also meant that there were already tons of messages that everyone has probably already heard multiple times before. How could I make this devotional useful to those listening or reading? After a few days of analysis paralysis, I did what I should have done in the beginning... I gave up. Stick with me, there's still a devo to read through. Through prayer and meditation, God showed me the biggest problem standing in the way. It wasn't analysis paralysis, it was myself. I was writing this devotional, I wanted to give a good message, I wanted to say something that you had never thought of before and something that would stick with you. I was looking for a "mic drop moment", if you will. This message was not mine to give. It was God's and I was trying to take all of the credit for whatever was going to be put down on this piece of paper. After much conviction, God planted this question on my heart: "How do you die to yourself when you pray?" Here I am leading a prayer group, worried more about how many people are showing up and running to God with only my troubles and requests. My prayer life was essentially what Jesus told us NOT to do. I am the hypocrite on the street corner and I am the babbling gentile asking for everything that I want. And welcome to the devotional on prayer... In Matthew 16:25, Jesus says "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it." We're called to die to ourselves. And this should permeate every aspect of our lives. It should affect the way that we act, serve, work, and... pray. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus addresses two aspects of prayer: The context and the content. Let's start with context. As we can see in verse 5, Jesus calls out those who heave up their prayers for all to see. They position themselves in the right place at the right time and they use grandiose gestures and language to show their righteousness in order to impress others. A lot of us have the tendency to want to use public prayers as a way to show our spiritual stature to others. We use prayers to God as a soapbox to flaunt our flourishing relationship and our flex our spiritual biceps. On the flip side, we can also get self conscious about praying in front of others because we are afraid of what they'll think of use if we mess up a reference or some other part of the prayer. We put too much thought into what others are getting from our prayers to God. Prayers are not a way of getting "Atta boys" nor are they a way of growing other's opinions of you and your righteousness. Sure, both of these may happen. You may get the reputation of being the most righteous guy or girl with the most eloquently beautiful prayers, but as Jesus says, "they have received their reward". So, does this mean that all corporate prayer is a bad thing? Of course not. Like may of Jesus' other points in his sermon, its all about the motive. Are we surrendering ourselves to God in prayer? Are we praying to the people around us, or are we praying to God? Instead, Jesus tells us in verse 6, "But whenever you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, and pray to your father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you." Next up, the content of prayers. As a society, we've been conditioned to come to God with all of our requests, but very rarely are we told to pray for the sake of gratefulness or just to be in the presence of God. The problem with this is that we don't even know what we need to be praying for. And we end up angry or resentful when we don't get an answer that we want or are expecting. Paul reminds us of this in Romans 8:26 and Jesus also tells us in verse 8 "your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." James 4:3 straight up tells us that we don't receive because we ask with the wrong motives. We ask for what will best serve us and what will put us ahead. For many of us, prayer has become an "I" centered practice, when the only place that "I" should be centered is in "Him". Prayer is an action of submission to God. We're to submit to Him and yes, request and cast our anxieties on Him, as Philipians 4:6 says but we are to request WITH THANKSGIVING. Luckily, Jesus helps us with the Lord's Prayer in verses 9-13. Such a simple prayer, but one with such large implications. The first half of the prayer is addressing the greatness of God, surrendering ourselves to his will, and praying for Him to further His kingdom. We acknowledge God as our Father in Heaven. We come to Him humbly as children recognizing his vast superiority to anything we could ever imagine. We pray for Him to make His name great. We pray for His kingdom to come and for HIS will to be done. Not MY will. Not OUR will. After fully posturing ourselves submitted to His will, we come asking simply for Him to keep His promise to us - to provide, to forgive, and to deliver us. We aren't to use God as a PEZ dispenser of blessings and answers, but we do let Him know what we're going through and what we want, understanding that ultimately His will be done and dying to the notion that we know what is best for our lives and for the lives of those around us. So I want to challenge you this week. Die to yourself in your prayers. Before you pray to God about anything - whether it be a request, or a blessing over food, or a prayer for someone else - start by thanking God. Thank Him for who He is, what He has done, and what He is planning to do. Put Him front and center of your prayers. I'm sure that you'll see an improvement in your prayer life and a new closeness in your walk with God.
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