Genuine Worship Series: A Heart of Prayer

Genuine Worship Series: A Heart of Prayer

Matthew Chapter 6 would like to turn there together this evening, and let's look in verse number 5. Matthew Chapter 6 and verse number 5 this evening, and here in verse number 5 we read these words.

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. For they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

This morning we looked at the passage in John 4 about the Samaritan woman and how the Lord said to her the time is coming when neither here nor in Jerusalem, you're not going to go to worship, but the Lord is seeking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. And we saw that we asked the question, is the Word of God in us? Does the Word have any place in us? It's not so much, it's not even do we know a lot of Scriptures, but does the Word have place in us? That was the problem with the Pharisees was not that they didn't know Scripture. Even when inquired of, the scribes said, well he's supposed to be born in Bethlehem, but they didn't even go to see whether he that was born King of the Jews was there.

They had no heart for the Word of God. They drew near with their mouth, but their heart was far from God and His Word. And yet, in contrast to that, we are to be people, men and women, of the Word. If we are of the Word, then the Word will come out of us. It will come out in our responses. If we hear, if we believe God speaking to us through His Word, then will respond to God. It's not merely some collection of knowledge and doctrines to fill our minds with. It is doctrine. It is full of doctrine, sound doctrine, good doctrine, but the purpose of the doctrine is to teach us the character and the will of God. And so we can't view it merely as something academic it is it is practical and personal and private and very personal in nature and that's the same way our prayer life should be.

I think we cannot we cannot come to a point where we say well we've preached enough messages now we don't you know we're never gonna have to preach any more messages we're never gonna have to ask God to help us anymore with our prayer life in our Bible study because that is the core of our Christian walk because it's like breathing, inhaling and exhaling. It's like talking in conversation. We're talking and we're listening. That's what prayer and Bible study is like in a genuine relationship with the Lord. When we pray, we're communicating with God and we have said so many times over the years that prayer is not merely petition or supplication, although it includes that. Prayer also, by definition, when you look in the scriptures, includes and must always include praise or thanksgiving to God.

In everything by prayer, with supplication and thanksgiving, right? Let your requests be made known unto God. While you're giving requests, don't get to thank the Lord. Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. And so this is always the spirit of prayer. It's communicating to God, with God, but it's petition as well as praise. Sometimes our prayers may just be, we may just offer up a prayer to God that is 100% praise. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I think when we look in the book of Psalms, especially some of those final Psalms like the one we read from this morning, I didn't read any petitions there. Did you read any petitions? I just read praise. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. There were just praises.

And I believe that it's very important for us just to stop and just thank the Lord in prayer sometimes without even, as I know some of you have talked about this before, but needed to praise the Lord, not just not just always asking something of the Lord. But the Lord in this passage that we just read here is not saying, don't you dare pray in public. He's not saying if you pray in public it's evil. It's just just like we've said before that money is not the root of evil. It's the love of money that's the root of evil. It's the sin of the Spirit. It's not that having money or it's not that you know working in the world, living in this world in itself is sinful is what you do with that. Are you living, you can live in the world but not the of the world, right? That's what we saw this morning. The Word of God God sets us apart. You can have money if the Lord chooses to bless you with that money, but don't set your heart upon it because it makes itself wings and flies away.

Job offered daily, and then when the Lord chose to take that away from him, the children, the family, the possessions he had, blessed be the name of the Lord. My hope is not built on anything less than the Lord, not in the money, not in the family He's given me. Although I thank Him for that, He could choose to take it away. Paul would say, I learned to be content. I have learned to be content in whatever state I'm in. It's not that I will worship the Lord as long as He keeps giving me all the goodies, and then if he doesn't, then I'll turn on him. But here we have this, the Lord is not saying, you can't pray in public, but don't only pray in public. Be sure that you have a real, personal, private prayer life with the Lord and when you do pray in public it should be in the same spirit as you pray when you're in private. Not to be seen of men but to be heard of God.

Not to, not, you're not praying to impress someone with oratory, although your prayer should be something that can be followed, but praying, praying to the Lord. Just because you're praying in the presence of men, what does he say here in this passage, don't be as the hypocrites are. We said this morning, we must be humble and trusting God, having a humble faith before God, not haughty, not proud, not hypocritical, for the the hypocrites, the Pharisees as hypocrites, love to pray. Their motive in praying in the synagogues, in the corner of streets is that they may be seen. That's what they're thinking about. I hope somebody will see me and hear me and think, my, what a spiritual person. What a great, what a great guy. You know, what a wonderful example. I want to, I want to think, I want them to think highly of. Well, they have their reward. That's the only reward they're going to get, is what they people think, which is not even true, but what people think of them, the impression they get because of the external show of their prayer, of their prayer.

Notice, remember what it said about the public, or the publican that We alluded to that this morning, the publican, he had a humble prostrate posture and spirit before God as he prayed, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And yet we read of the Pharisee, what did it say of him? It said, he prayed thus with himself. Do you ever catch yourself when you're praying? You're more so, are you really praying to God? Sometimes we're just talking. Are we actually praying to God? Are we asking God for anything? Are we looking to God with the prayer? Are we conscious that the words coming out of our mouth, we're actually communicating with God? We may not even have to open our mouth, we could just pray in our hearts before God. But as we pray, are we conscious of whose presence were coming before? Are we praying with ourselves or are we praying to God?

You know, and the Pharisee that prayed thus with himself was not actually communicating with God. He was not actually talking to God. He was essentially talking to himself. He was not praising God in his prayer, he was praising himself and acting as if he was presenting this prayer to the Lord. I thank thee, not like other men are. He was talking with himself. He was praising him. He was patting himself on the back. I'm morally superior to this guy over here. He was thinking, I'm a pretty good guy because of what I don't do, not only what I do, but what I don't do. Pretty good guy. Well, we've already said that they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. That's true of the Pharisees. But we're warned here in Matthew 6, not only in the verses we read, but even back in verse 2 it said, when thou doest thine arms. Don't sound a trumpet. All right everyone gather around and look. That's what the hypocrites do.

They want, they get that, we've talked about it before, they get that rush. We can sometimes get a hit of dopamine or a rush of a feeling of affirmation when others see us doing something. It's okay if someone sees you doing something, but don't do it to be seen. Don't do it to be heard. Don't do it to gain and to garner the praise of men. That's not why we should be doing it. Therein lives the wrong motive, the wrong motive in what we're doing. The whole point of all of this, that we would not be hypocrites, is that we must have a genuine prayer life that it doesn't matter if anybody ever sees or knows about it except God. Well, we read here in this passage that in verse 4, Matthew 6 verse 4, what did it say there? That thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly regarding the alms but it also says in verse 6 regarding the prayers pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

He's going to make Don't seek the reward from men. Seek this reward that comes from God. That's the reward, isn't it? It's his presence. It's his blessing upon our lives. It's him giving us the words and the wisdom and the direction and the strength and the peace and the joy that we are absolutely desperately in need of instead of merely the affirmation of men. We need God's peace. We don't need the peace that this world gives. We need the peace that God gives. We need the joy of the Lord flooding our souls. We need that wisdom that can only come from above. You can talk to somebody about your problems all you want, but they're not gonna be able to, they may be able to point you to some things in God's Word, but ultimately it's God that's going to have to reveal to you personally exactly what you need in your specific situation as an answer to prayer.

He's gonna have to guide you in your steps. I mean, there's gonna come a time, and they already, we all need God's wisdom every day, but I think about these children here, We can try to point them in a good direction. We can try to set a good example before them, but they're going to have to have their own personal walk with the Lord and know where is the Lord leading them. David needs God's direction in his life. Where is the Lord leading me? I can't tell even my own children, ultimately, everything about what God's will is for them. I can say, well, stay away from that, you know, but and and here's a good direction but I can't I can't live their life for them and they can't live my life for me my wife can't live my life for me we have to live in our walk with the Lord individually in our own and our own lives and you know that's why our praise to God is individual very individualized. When you share something, I can share something with you, I say, the Lord just blessed me. As I was reading my Bible, as I was thinking on this the other day, as I was praying, and as I was praying, the Lord brought this thought to my mind, or you know any number of things like that, and you say, that's a blessing, brother.

The Lord showed that to you, the Lord brought that to your mind, the Lord helped you with that, or whatever, and But it will never mean as much to that other person as it does to you. It will never hit that other individual, I don't believe, in the same way that it what it means to you individually. It's like if I saw I went to the mountains and I saw this beautiful sunset and I said, you should have been there. You should have seen it. I mean, I can even take a picture of it. It's not going to be the same as having been there yourself and having seen it. That's one of the things I enjoy. I don't want to get too far off the track here but that's one of the things I enjoy about when I'm you know sitting in a deer stand and you see certain things. And I just thought, I've thought to myself a number of times, I just saw something that nobody else on this planet saw except me and God right now. It's just something that's a unique experience and we all see things like that in our everyday lives.

But what a wonderful thing it is when the Lord gives us even foretaste of glory divine, encourages us and strengthens us and gives us wisdom. All the comfort and the strength that is to our hearts. But if we will truly depend on God in our closet prayer life, He'll bless us in a public way in our daily lives. If we're really depending upon the Lord, He won't be resisting us. He'll be giving grace to us, is what the scripture says. He will be pouring out blessings. And so we can't think, you know, if I can just sort of fake it and pray and people will think I have a prayer life, but no, we've got to pray. We've got to spend, what does the hymn say? Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone. By looking to Jesus, like him, thou shalt be thy friends in thy conduct. His likeness shall see. They're going to see, not, the prayer would be, Lord, may they not see my ugly old self, but may they see see you in me, may they see Christ in me.

Well that's that's the blessing isn't it? When others can see Jesus in me, in you. That's going, what this passage is telling us tonight is that will only happen if we have an actual prayer life with the Lord. That can, you can only fake it but so You can only put on the facade, but so long. Sometimes I wonder how a house may crumble so suddenly, but at the same time the termites may have been eating away at it for so long, and then eventually the wind comes along and it falls, or a wall falls because it's been rotting away for some period of time and it just wasn't visible. It wasn't seen to the public eye. We've said before David's moral failure was not a last minute accident. It was something that was precipitating. It was something that was building or something that was, we might say, deteriorating to a point where he was weakened and was not able to resist that temptation because he wasn't where he ought to have been in his own personal walk with the Lord.

I know I've shared with you before about Stonewall Jackson. He had his own closet, so to speak, in the woods. He said that he We love to resort to the woods and spend time alone with the Lord there. We need a place. We need a time. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but we need that time unbothered, undistracted, to spend with the Lord in prayer. It's not even just the quantity of the time we pray, although we need to spend time, dedicate specific time to it. It's the heart of wanting that time. You know, even with our families, we live in a world full of distractions. We live in a world full of so many things to pull us away. Busy, busy, busy, busy, aren't we? We were just talking about Sister Donna, how fast the time is going. There's always so much to do. We have to carve out. We have to make time to spend with, we have to make that time to be in God's house. We have to make that time to be sure that we have time to just actually have a conversation with our spouse or our children or grandchildren or whatever it may be, to take that time with one another. And we certainly need to take the time with the Lord.

It was first that Adam was formed and his first relationship was with God. His first relationship, his first communication was not with Eve, it was with the Lord. And so ours should be with the Lord. It's not always, sometimes we can be driving down the road, we don't have to verbalize the prayer, but just a thought of thanksgiving may come to our hearts. Someone, the Lord may bring someone to our minds and we just say, Lord, help so-and-so in their procedure they're having. Help so-and-so with the trial they're facing right now. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't have to be a long prayer, but it must be in the reality of the personal, not in the public eye, but in our personal walk with the Lord. We're just breathing prayer out to God, talking to him.

If we regard what we see this morning in Psalm 66 verse 18, we saw this important principle in the Sunday school hour. Psalm 66 verse 18, I think brother, I think it was brother Andrew who read this. Psalm 66 verse 18 in that private prayer life, it's certainly true in the public prayer life as well but but in a private here's this principle if I regard Psalm 66 verse 18 says if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me of course we know first John tells us that if we ask anything according to his will we know that he heareth us and if we know that he hear us we know that we have the petitions that we desire of him. So, but I cannot regard, I cannot entertain sin in my heart and expect the Lord to hear me. That's proud. That's pride. But if I confess my sins, I know that he's faithful and just to forgive me. If I know of any sin in my life, it's no sense in me even trying to begin to pray. Lord, first of all, I confess my sins. I want to get this under the blood and then I know just as sure as your word is true that I can come into your presence through Jesus Christ because you are faithful and just to forgive and cleanse from all unrighteousness.

When I pray, as I said it's more than asking, it's about praising the Lord. And then when I pray. I must not pray selfishly, as we've said so many times before. I must pray. I must pray for God's will to be done. Pray according to his will. I'm not telling the Lord what to do. I'm not saying, you know, I'm not commanding the Lord, but I am reminding God of what he's already said he will do in his Word. That's part of praying according to his will. Knowing that he will hear me, if I can come to him, and as it were, I'm holding in my Lord, look at what you've promised. Look at what you said in your words. I come to you on that basis because here I am facing this challenge, here I am facing this dilemma. I need your strength, I need your wisdom, and I know you've said that you'll give liberally and will not upbraid. As we pray, we need to pray humbly. We need to pray humbly with the only desire and motive of our hearts being that God will hear this prayer and that he will do what is best in this situation. It's not to be the motive, once again, as we see here in the text, that we would be seen of men, but that we would be heard by God.

When thou prayest, as we saw here in this passage, don't be as the hypocrites, but instead of their vain repetitions to be heard of men, let us enter into our closet, as it says here in verse 6. When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret. It reminds me a lot of that passage, James 1 27, where it says, pure religion, pure genuine religion, undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. What's the common denominator there? The motive is not to be seen of men in that. The motive is to be seen of God and for God to bless it. And that's to be the motive here. That's to be the motive. We should never stop praying. We should never stop praying, but we should keep on praying.

You know, we We've seen, pray without ceasing, right? Just here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, we're to pray without ceasing. We're to in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving as we mentioned a moment ago in Philippians 4 verse 6. Remember, remember that we should not stop praying because we lose the feeling. We won't, we don't have, you know, I just don't, I don't feel like praying. I don't feel like I'm on the is prayer about feeling. I've been listening to this book by, this audio book by, well he didn't do the audio, but I've been listening to it as I've been driving by F.B. Meyer about the secret of guidance in our lives and and he was pointing out we sometimes we get fact, feeling, and faith. We get those in the wrong order. Sometimes we put faith, or we put feeling ahead of fact and faith. We put feeling first, and so we're up, we're down, we're up and we're down, we're back and we're forth because we want the feeling. I want the feeling. I'll just serve God if you just give me the feeling, but the feeling is not the basis of our walk with the Lord. It's faith. We walk by faith, and we need to pray by faith. And if we're going to be consistent in praying in our closet, then we're going to have to We're not going to be able to do it by faith, we're not going to be able to do it by feeling. Because often times, as you look in the scriptures, the feeling may not be there, and yet, just like the children of Israel, the priests, stepped out into the Jordan River, right, in faith, and then the waters began to recede. The waters began to recede. Because, and how many examples of this can we see? Noah set out, moved with fear, prepared, he began preparing that arc. I'm sure there were days where he didn't have the feeling. He didn't have the feeling, oh this is, you know, I'm just on top of the world today. I don't know, he probably felt like the all scouring of the earth some days. And yet, and yet he just continued to do what God had told him to do because he trusted God. And as a result of that, it was not, it certainly wasn't to be seen of men, if he was to be seen of men, if anything, it was to be scoffed at by men. But he wanted to please God because he trusted what God had told him was the truth. And so it should be with us when we pray.

If we don't keep our eyes on the Lord, we will faint. If we don't keep our eyes on the Lord, we will faint in our prayer life. We will get weary of praying, but we ought not to be weary of praying. we ought to not cease from praying. What was it Samuel talked about God something along the lines of God forbid that he should sin and ceasing to pray for the people. May we not sin in ceasing to pray to God in not not nuts not in a way just to be seen of men but ceasing to pray truly in faith according to God's will, in private before Him. Everything I see in our garden, you know, when we plant, we plant, we're planting things in a certain month. What you're planting, let's say in April, you're going to be harvesting in July and August and September. You don't automatically, you're not going to see the results right away. Now some things you'll see the results sooner if you put lettuce in the ground you get that in a few weeks but if you put you know if you put a pepper plant and that's even putting the plant in the ground if you put the you're gonna have to sow that seed unless you buy it from the nursery get so that seed in February or March or something depending on what it is but you have to sow that seed you know the seeds the the peppers were reaping from the garden right now in September they're coming off by the fistfuls we started that seed and either February or March, those seeds. It takes time. And you have to, if you're wanting to see the fruit, you've got to invest something in it. And it's the same with prayer. And it's God that gave the increase in the garden and it's God that gives the increase in our prayer life, isn't it? So many parallels to the natural examples, God. That's why the Bible is couched in agrarian terminology. So many these things, God has purposely put there to give us an object lesson, a picture to show us that and so it is in the spiritual realm. And so it is in our spiritual walk with Him.

May God help us not to simply pray or read and hear and enjoy the Bible when we are in the house of God, but may we truly have that personal communication with him, hearing from him and his word and speaking to him from the heart with sincere motives before him, trusting him day by day. It's like sowing seed, isn't it? It's that day by day, trusting, what does the hymn say? Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the days go by, trusting as the moments fly, trusting as the days go by. Trusting him would e'er befall, trusting Jesus, that is all.

Let's pray. Father, we pray that in our spiritual walk with you, whether it be in the communication of hearing what you say to us through the word, or whether it be us speaking to you through prayer, that we would keep the way clear, keep the way open that in our walk, that we would not cease to pray, we would not cease to speak to you in private about the things that are needs in our lives, that we not cease to praise your name as we lift up these petitions, but may we continue to avail ourselves of the privilege. May we not take that privilege lightly or forfeit it in any way, but help us to pray without ceasing, to pray with sincerity, and know that you'll hear from heaven and you will answer that prayer in your way and your will and your timing. We pray these things asking that you to bless us as we go forward this new week. Help us to grow in our prayer life, even this week. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.