CHURCH
IMPROVEMENT: BUILDING A CHURCH
THAT
HONORS GOD AND LOVES PEOPLE
THROUGH
A LIFE OF PRAYER
Matthew 6: 7-15
INTRODUCTION
Several years ago Jane and I were looking for a
piece of furniture. We went to 5 or 6 different
stores comparing quality and price. On our first
visit to one to the stores we happened to overhear
a salesman talking with another couple. We watched
and heard him, in a very
charming and sincere manner lead the couple to purchase
the most expensive piece of furniture rather than
the more moderately priced one. He was very good. After
shopping all the stores we decided that we wanted
to buy at the store this salesman worked at. The
evening we went there to make our purchase this same
sales clerk was working. He worked very hard to
become our friend in the fifteen minutes we talked together. However, we were very guarded
in our conversation. We didn’t smile much. We didn’t
look him in the eye and we gave him as little information
as possible. We concentrated on asking him questions
and resisted his every attempt to get us to look
at anything else but what we had decided upon. I’m
sure an outside observer would have described us
as cold and maybe even rude. We were focused on
our objective and had absolutely no interest in getting
to know him. How we talked and what we talked about
revealed that we did not trust him.
Now if you were to have observed us in that conversation
and then been in our house a couple of months ago
when our good friends Gordon and Linda Harris were
here for a visit, you’d think we were different people. We
stayed up late talking about our feelings and thoughts. We
asked them questions about their lives and their
children. It was an entirely different conversation. You
would know that we loved Gordon and Linda and that
we trusted them because of how we talked with them.
It is this principle, that the
quality and content of your communication with a
person reveals how you feel and what you think about
that person, that Jesus addresses in Matthew 6: 7-15. I
want you to notice the structure of 6: 1-18, so you
can see how important Jesus views your prayer life,
your communication with God. You’ll notice that
in v. 1 Jesus gives the thesis statement to this
section of his sermon. Then in vv. 2-4 he applies
the principle to giving to the poor. In vv. 5-6
he applies it to prayer. In vv. 16-18 he applies
it to fasting. But do you see how he breaks the
pattern in vv. 7-15? It’s like he mentions prayer
in 5 & 6 and cannot complete his thought without
giving more instruction on prayer. I believe that
the very structure of this passage shows us that
prayer is the center of the Christian life. What
activity most characterizes a true child of God? The
answer Jesus gives is, “he prays.” The Christian
life is a praying life. “Prayerless Christian” is
an oxymoron. The quantity, quality and content of
our prayers show exactly what we think about God
and our relationship to him. In Matthew 6: 7-15
Jesus shows that…
MAIN POINT
True prayer displays the greatness of the living
and true God by…
I. Relating to Him as our Father who is in
heaven (vv. 7-9a)
Jesus begins his discussion of prayer by referring
to how pagans pray. The emphasis in v. 7 is not on
the babbling but on the attitude that is behind the
babbling. Jesus is not telling us it is wrong to
pray long prayers or to repeat yourself when you
pray. He is condemning how people think about and
therefore relate to God. The pagans think the reason
they must use lots of words in their praying is because
their gods won’t listen to them unless they do. They
view their relationship with their gods on an employer—employee
basis. “If I do so much praying then the god is
obligated to provide a certain reward.” It’s like
a child memorizing a passage from a big, religious
book. When asked why she does this by her sister
she says, “You know how dad likes to read these big
theology books. I figure he’ll be nicer to me if
I memorize these. He’ll be sure to give me what
I want when I show him how much of this stuff that
I memorized.” The pagans do not believe their gods
are really interested in them. They need to do enough
religious things to get their attention and to persuade
them to give them what they want. If they follow
the rules, the gods will look upon them with favor. It
was their efforts, their praying in a certain
way and with the right words that determine whether
the gods would give them what they want.
When a person approaches God in this fashion, who
is all the attention focused upon? Who gets the
credit when a prayer is answered? The person praying
gets the entire honor. I prayed correctly and so
God gave me what I wanted. Jesus condemns this kind
of praying because it puts all the attention on men
and diminishes the wonder of God’s gracious fatherhood. It
is not only pagan’s that pray like this. It is the
natural tendency of every human being to approach
God in this fashion.
I have often done this. As many of you know, I
became a Christian in the spring of my junior year
in college. During my senior year I was very involved
with a student Christian group called CCC. I was
in at least two bible studies every week. I was
involved in sharing the gospel with others, leading
a bible study of my own, praying in groups and involved
in a church. Jane and I were married the summer
after I graduated. We remained in Stevens Point
while she finished school. I worked with a general
contractor building houses. Between work and marriage
my involvement in Christian activities was severely
diminished. I remember one evening trying to pray
and feeling so overwhelmed with guilt because I wasn’t
doing anything for God that I was sure there was
no way he would listen to me. As I was wrestling
with my guilt I read Romans 5:6, “For while we were
still powerless, at the right time, Christ died for
the ungodly.” I was feeling especially ungodly at
the moment. It hit me like a ton of bricks that
Christ didn’t die for me because I was seeking God
and intent on loving God. He died for me and made
me God’s child when I wanted nothing to do with God. God
was not going to pay attention to me because of what
I had done and he wasn’t going to ignore me because
of what I hadn’t done. He was committed to me,
as my Father, because of what Christ had done.
The whole point of Matthew 6:8 is to show us how
committed God is to us. He is paying very close
attention to us and knows exactly what we need. We
should not view our praying as necessary to inform
him of what we need or in order to persuade him to
give us what we need. We approach God with the same
confidence a trusting child goes to a kind parent,
knowing that He loves us and that he is committed
to providing for His children. In this way all the
attention is on God as the faithful Father and not
on our effort.
So we begin our prayers by addressing our Father
who is in heaven. It is absolutely astonishing that
we can call God our Father. That is the first thing
that Jesus would have us feel. That rebels like
us, who have defied and despised our Creator as we
have, should be called sons and daughters of the
Most High God is astounding. So we begin our praying
in humble gratitude for we have done nothing to earn
the right to call God our Father. In fact, just
as you did nothing to deserve to be born and you
did nothing to contribute to your physical birth,
so you and I have done nothing to deserve to be called
children of God, nor have we done anything to make
ourselves children of God. God is our Father by
grace, through the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. God is our Father by his gracious
work of giving us a new heart by the Holy Spirit.
I want you to think with me about the nature of
the relationship between a loving father and his
children. I want to do this by describing what happens
almost every morning in our home between my youngest
daughter Jaimee, who is four, and I. I’m always
the first one up and go to the kitchen to eat breakfast
and read God’s word. Jaimee is always the second
one out of bed. When she comes into the kitchen,
after greeting me, she will often say, “I’m hungry. May
I have something to eat?” I will say, “Yes you may. Would
you like cereal and juice or a waffle and juice?” She’ll
tell me what she wants and I will prepare it. She
almost always will then say to me, “Thank you daddy.” It
is a great joy to me to have my daughter ask for
my help, for me to help her and then for her to say
thank you. I love to take care of her.
However, on some mornings when Jaimee comes down,
especially during the Christmas holidays when we
have had cookies and candies sitting in the kitchen,
she will come down, get up on a stool and while she
is opening a box of candy she will say, “Daddy, may
I have some candy?” I will say, “I’m sorry honey
but you can’t have any candy right now. You need
to eat breakfast now. You can have some candy after
lunch.” If Jaimee is thinking correctly about our
relationship and if her heart is full of love towards
me, she will reason like this. “My daddy loves me
and he is much wiser than I am. If he says I cannot
have any candy now, then that must be what is best.” Therefore
she will say to me, “OK, Daddy. I’ll take your no
to my request as an expression of your loving wisdom
for me.” If Jaimee is living by faith, that
is, trusting me to wisely and lovingly provide
for her needs, she will take my no, as an expression
of love. However, if she loves what she wants more
than she loves me, more than she trusts me, then
she will protest and fight. One other thing about
father’s and children; my saying “no” to her request
does not cause her to stop asking me for things. She
is my child and she knows that I love to care for
her and to meet her needs and so she does not hesitate
to keep asking me for things.
If you address God as your Father you go to him
with all of your needs and thank him for the many
ways he supplies your needs. When he says no to
your request you don’t decide that he doesn’t love
you or he isn’t able to help you. When you ask God
for things you ask him knowing that he will give
you everything you truly need. You go to him as
a submissive, dependent child who rejoices to know
that her loving and infinitely powerful Father will
give her everything she needs to live the life He
has called her to live. Jesus wants us to begin
our prayers by remembering whom it is we are addressing
and what is the nature of our relationship
with Him. All the attention is then upon
God, not us, as we consider how amazing it is that
God relates to us as his children.
True prayer
displays the greatness of the living and true
God by…
¨ Relating
to God as our Father in heaven
¨ And
by…
II. Delighting in and
seeking His fame (vv. 9b-10)
Christian praying, in opposition to the praying
of hypocrites who are only concerned with their own
reputation and in opposition to pagans who only view
God as a means to get what they really want, is first
and primarily concerned with the fame of God. The
first three petitions that Jesus teaches us to pray
have to do with God’s fame. (read 9b & 10)
Jesus is radically God-centered in his view of reality. God
is not living in our world. We are living in his
world. Life is not about us. Life is about God. So,
the person who has God as his Father is first and
foremost concerned with God’s reputation in the world.
The word translated “hallowed” in verse 9 is a huge
Old Testament word. It is used almost 200 times
in the OT and always in relation to God. The word
means “to treat someone or something as holy”, “to
make someone or something holy”, “to
set someone or something apart for a holy use.” God,
we are told is holy. That is, he is absolutely unique. There
is no one and nothing like Him. He is to be treated
with the utmost respect and fear and love and submission. It
is the chief duty of man to be impressed with God
and to treat him as he alone deserves. We were made
for displaying the greatness of God by enjoying him
forever. This is what the verb means.
What Jesus is commanding us to pray is that God
would be seen, admired, enjoyed, worshipped, and
treated with respect. This is the first passion
of the Christian. It is what we most enjoy and want
more than anything else in life. This is not a hard
passion to understand. Every person who is a true
fan of a sports team understands this desire. It’s
not enough for the true sports fan to watch their
team play the game. They want others to join them
and to enjoy watching. It is this desire that moves
sports fans to invite groups over to the house to
watch the game together. It is this passion that
motivates dads to go through the hassle and spend
the money to take their children to the game. They
want others to be as impressed with the greatness
of their team as they are. Every parent understands
this desire. Parents are not satisfied with enjoying
their child’s performance in the school play or on
the team or in the band. They want others to come
and witness and enjoy their child’s success as well. I
love inviting people to come watch my children perform. When
others are delighted with their ability, it makes
me happy. Every collector understands this ambition. Collectors
are not merely satisfied with finding the rare coin,
the unique figurine. They want others to be impressed
by their collections. They display their collections
in their homes. They love to describe what makes
each item in the collection great. They contribute
their collections to museums for others to see and
admire and find joy in. In the same way the Christian
is not merely content to know God but he desires
to have others see and admire him as well and this
is what he asks God to do. He asks God to do whatever
it takes to reveal himself so that others see and
admire him.
God’s fame is made great wherever his rule as king
is being felt. Wherever God’s power to destroy evil
and to protect and provide for his subjects is seen,
there is God’s name being glorified. So Christians
pray that God’s kingdom would come. It is a prayer
that he would destroy the evil in me and in his church
and in the world. It is a prayer that more and more
people would submit to his rule in their lives. Parents,
don’t you pray this way for your children? Don’t
you pray this for your loved ones and neighbors and
friends? When you look at this world don’t you yearn
to see Christ rule over more and more people?
God’s name is made great wherever his will is being
done. When we ask God’s will to be done, we are
asking for two things. First, we are asking
that his word be obeyed; by us and by others. We
yearn to follow God’s word and for others to do so
as well. Do want to pray in a way that you can be
absolutely sure that God is going to answer? Take
specific commands from the Bible and pray that God
would cause specific people to obey those commands. Don’t
do this so that your life would be made easier. Don’t
pray, “God please make these rotten kids of mine
obey me like they’re supposed to.” Rather we ask
God to cause others to obey his commands so that
God’s greatness will be magnified in the world and
so that people will be happier. The path of joy
and life is found only in obeying the commands of
God, so we pray that people would seek their true
happiness in obedience to God’s commands.
The second thing we are praying is that God’s will in all the events of our life and in the whole world
would be accomplished. The amazing thing is that
God tells us that his will is going to be done on
the earth and yet he commands us to ask that his
will be done on the earth. Psalm 33:10-11 “The Lord
foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes
of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand
firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all
generations.” God accomplishes his purposes through
our prayers.
The phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven” does not
apply to only the prayer for his will to be done
but to all three petitions. We want God to be as
famous on earth as he is in heaven. We want his
sovereign rule to be felt and submitted to with the
same enthusiasm as it is in heaven. We want God’s
will to be obeyed with the same gladness on earth
as in heaven. We are praying for these to take place
in greater ways in our lives and in the church and
in the world now but we are ultimately looking for
their fulfillment in heaven. We are to continually
ask God to come and establish heaven on earth through
the return of Christ to judge evil and save his people
and create a new heaven and a new earth. As God’s
children we long for the day when God’s fame fills
the earth, when God’s rule is everywhere known and
loved, where God’s will is perfectly done by all
of creation. This is what we ask God to do, because
this is what we long for.
Are your prayers full of requests that God’s fame,
God’s rule and God’s will be rejoiced in on earth
just like in heaven? Is this your highest passion? Jesus
is not only instructing us about how to pray but
challenging us to examine ourselves to see if we
are actually one of his children. Can you pray these
first three petitions and mean them?
True prayer
displays the greatness of the living and true
God by…
¨ Relating
to God as our Father in heaven
¨ Delighting
in and seeking His fame
¨ And
by…
III. Depending upon God for all things (vv. 11-15)
John Stott captures
well the transition that takes place between the
first half of the prayer and the second. "Having
expressed our burning desire for his glory, we
now express our humble dependence on his grace...To
decline to mention our needs at all in prayer is
as great an error as to allow them to dominate
our prayers.” Jesus commands us to ask him to
provide for our daily needs, to forgive our sins
and to rescue us from the domination of evil and
the evil one. There are several things that I
want you to see about these three petitions.
¨ First,
the order that is in the prayer is very important. You
cannot ask God to provide for your daily bread unless
you have asked him to cause his will to be done in
your life and in the world. Jesus knows how easy
it is for us to make created things into gods, into
idols that we require for our happiness. So he tells
us to ask God to provide for us so we will acknowledge
all things as coming from his hand but we can only
ask for God’s provision of earthly needs when our
hearts are first fixed upon his kingdom and his righteousness.
¨ Second,
notice we are to ask God to provide “our” daily bread,
to forgive “our” sins, to not lead “us” into temptation
but to deliver “us” from the evil one. Jesus is
commanding us to ask for these things not only for
ourselves but also for other Christians. My praying
is not to just be consumed with what I need but also
with what my brothers and sisters in Christ need. I
am part of a family and like every good family I
care about the others members of my family. These
pronouns are the reason to come to one of the prayer
meetings this week. These pronouns are the reason
to have a prayer list where you keep track of the
names of others that you are praying for. These
pronouns tell us to be asking each other regularly, “How
can I pray for you?” These pronouns show us that
you cannot be a Christian by yourself. You must
belong to a praying community, that is, to the church. These
pronouns tell us that we must have other Christians
in our lives that we are telling our sins to and
talking about our temptations with so that they can
ask God on our behalf to forgive us and to deliver
us from the evil that threatens to destroy us.
¨ To
ask for our daily bread is to ask God, as D.A. Carson
says, “to provide our needs, not our greeds.” Martin
Luther describes our daily bread this way, (It is) “everything
required to satisfy our bodily needs, such as food
and clothing, house and home, fields and flocks,
money and property; a pious spouse and good children,
trustworthy servants, godly and faithful rulers,
good government; seasonable weather, peace and health,
order and honor; true friends, faithful neighbors,
and the like.” God commands us to ask him for these
things as a confident and submissive child asks a
loving father to provide for her needs.
¨ When
Jesus commands us to ask that God would forgive our
sins, he is teaching us that Christians sin. Any
time you hear someone say that true Christians don’t
sin you can know they are lying. However, Christians
don’t delight to sin. They know their sins offend
God and so they quickly go to God to seek his forgiveness. Repentance
and confession of sin is the daily work of the Christian. If
you are not daily going to God with your sin you
are not obeying Christ and obviously do not understand
how offensive your sin is to God.
¨ This
would be such a great prayer if it weren’t for that
little phrase Jesus stuck on the end of v. 12, “as
we have also forgiven our debtors.” Then to make
us really uncomfortable he adds his little commentary
in vv. 14-15. Why does Jesus want us, when we seek
God’s forgiveness, to tell him that we have forgiven
our debtors? First let me say that Jesus is not
teaching that you earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving
others. If you owe someone $10,000 and someone owes
you $100 you are not going to be able to get out
of your $10,000 debt by forgiving the $100 debt you
are owed. I think there are at least 2 things that
Jesus wants us to remember when we are seeking his
forgiveness. First, we all know how angry
it makes us when someone sins against us. When people
do evil to us we immediately want justice. So Jesus
wants us to reason like this. If it is so offensive
to me when others sin against me how much greater
must God be offended by my sin. If I, who am not perfectly
just and holy, am so offended by the sins of others,
how great must be God’s wrath against me? Reflecting
on this causes me to mourn over my own sin in greater
ways. Remembering how offensive my sins must be
to God causes me to cling more tightly to Jesus Christ
as the only hope I have of being forgiven for my
great sins. Second, it is only those who
have received and felt the greatness of God’s mercy who are
able to extend mercy to others. When I am able to
confidently tell God, who knows my heart, that I
have forgiven my debtors, I am declaring the certainty
I have that God has forgiven me. How can I hold
a grudge against anyone else when God has forgiven
such great sins in me? The absence of a vindictive,
judgmental spirit in me assures me that God has indeed
given me a new heart and washed away my sins. God
wants us to pray this way to keep us from being presumptuous. Everyone
wants to have his or her sins forgiven and to go
to heaven. However, only those who have faith in
Christ are forgiven and will go to heaven. Jesus,
by requiring that I tell God that I have forgiven
those who have sinned against me, helps me to avoid
the greatest danger I face as a human being, presuming
that I am forgiven and going to heaven when I am
not. When I honestly tell God I am holding no grudges,
I am not requiring those who have sinned against
me to pay for what they have done, then I
am showing that I am forgiven. When you are holding
a grudge and/or content to live in a state of alienation
from others, you are proving that you don’t really “get” the
gospel. When you are unwilling to forgive and to
be reconciled to others, you show that you have not
understood the enormity of God’s mercy towards you
in Christ.
¨ The
final petition, to not be led into temptation but
to be delivered from evil balances the previous petition
for forgiveness. While Christians do sin and therefore
must confess their sins, yet Christians don’t want
to sin. In fact they are in a battle to overcome
sin and know that the only hope they have of overcoming
it is if God enables them to do so. I love how Martin
Luther describes this final petition in his catechism:
“God tempts no one to sin,
but we pray in this petition that God may so guard
and preserve us that the devil, the world, and our
own evil nature may not deceive us or mislead us
into unbelief, despair, and other great and shameful
sins, but that, although we may be so tempted, we
may finally prevail and gain the victory. We pray
that our Father in heaven may deliver us from all
manner of evil, whether it affect body or soul, property
or reputation, and that at last, when the hour of
death comes, he may grant us a blessed end and graciously
take us from this world of sorrow to himself in heaven.”
We know that every day,
life is war. Every day I live in a world that screams
at me to find my joy and happiness in everything
and anything except for God. Every day my own sinful
self demands to be made happy in this world and refuses
to be happy in God alone. Every day I have a fierce
enemy, the devil, who appeals to my sinful nature
with lies of pleasures to be found outside of God
and his will. So every day I need to call upon God
to deliver me from evil. A God-filled life is a
prayer filled life. If we are a prayerless people
we are a godless people. You cannot claim to be
a follower of Christ and live a life of prayerlessness. If
God is your Father, then you will be towards him
as a little child who humbly and confidently asks
her dear Father to care for all.
There isn’t a person in here who doesn’t need to
and I hope want to improve both the quantity and
the quality of his or her praying. The fact of the
matter is that if you do not plan to pray, you will
not pray. You don’t just wake up one morning and
say to the family, “We’re leaving today for a four
week vacation.” You will not go on vacation without
planning. You will not pray better or more without
planning. I want each of us to take 10 minutes this
afternoon or this evening before you go to bed to
make a plan for praying more than you currently are
praying. Think about the current status of your
praying and then make a decision to do one thing
that will increase both the quantity and quality
of your praying. Maybe you’ll get up thirty minutes
earlier than you are now so you can pray. Maybe
you’ll use the Lord’s Prayer to guide your praying. Maybe
you’ll start keeping a prayer journal where you record
who and what you prayed for each day. Maybe you’ll
start coming to our Wednesday morning prayer meeting
at the church from 6am-8am. Maybe you’ll find another
person you can regularly meet with for the purpose
of praying. Maybe you’ll use your lunch break at
work to pray.
True
prayer displays the greatness of the living
and true
God by…
¨ Relating
to God as our Father in heaven
¨ Delighting
in and seeking His fame
¨ Depending
on him for all things