Matthew 6:7-8
January 27, 2002
Dr. Jerry Nelson
Faith is prayer’s foundation.
Prayer is a confession
of faith
What important truth do those statements capture?
Read the text:
Matthew
6:7-13
“And
when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be
heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows
what you need before you ask him."
This,
then, is how you should pray:
`Our
Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your
kingdom come,
your
will be done
on earth as it
is in heaven.
Give
us today our daily bread.
Forgive
us our debts,
as
we also have forgiven our debtors.
And
lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one. '
This sermon is for those who pray, not for those who don’t.
It is not the point of this sermon to make anyone feel guilty about his or her lack of praying.
Jesus doesn’t say, “You ought to pray”.
He says, “When you pray…”
Do you ever lose hope in prayer?
Are you tempted to say, “I pray but nothing happens”?
Do you ever get bored with prayer?
You pray the same old things over and over again and nothing changes?
“The Lord’s Prayer”, sometimes called the “Our Father” is a model prayer.
What does it model?
Well, you say, it models how to pray.
Yes, Jesus specifically says, “"This, then, is how you should
pray.”
And in Sundays to come, we will look at the content of his model prayer.
But before getting to that, it seems important to “camp” for a while on what Jesus emphasizes about prayer even before he models such prayer.
Listen again to Jesus’ introduction to the model prayer:
Matthew
6:7-9
“And
when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be
heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows
what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray…”
In the surrounding verses Jesus drew a sharp contrast between hypocrites and his followers.
In verse 1 of this chapter, he instructed that his followers were not to do their “acts of righteousness” to be seen by others but only to serve God.
Beginning in verses 2 and 5 of this same chapter, Jesus used the illustrations of giving and praying to teach that he wants his followers, Christians, to “play or live to an audience” of one – God.
Regarding prayer, Jesus said I don’t want your prayers to be a statement to others in the guise of talking to God.
That’s hypocrisy.
When you pray, let your only motive be to talk to God.
But before Jesus goes on to give his third illustration of hypocrisy beginning in verse 16 where he discusses fasting, he stays for a while on the subject of prayer in verse 7-15.
And in his introduction in verses 7 to 9 he adds another very important teaching about prayer.
Matthew 6:7
“And when you pray,
do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because
of their many words.
What does Jesus say is important for us to know about prayer?
To understand it, we first of all see the obvious when he says:
“don’t keep on babbling like pagans…”
“Babbling” is an
onomatopoeic word like buzz or hum where the word actually sounds like what it
represents.
In this
case it means nonsense sounds - babbling.
Historians tell us
that other religions in Jesus’ day used long magical incantations in their
prayers.
These were nonsense syllables comparable to “abracadabra”.
There were religions where the people just said
the names of their gods over and over again.
Muslim prayers are to be
recited five times each day.
Hindu and
Buddhist prayers are better if they are longer and more repetitious because
repetition is the soul of their prayers.
The Jews of Jesus day
had many prayers commanded of them:
·
The “eighteen
prayer” of 18 parts was to be prayed three times a day.
·
The Shema’ twice
daily,
·
Then there were
confessions, table prayers, and doxologies.
Why did some pray
that way?
Jesus said
they thought they would be heard because of their many words.
They believed they had to get or earn God’s attention.
I’m reminded of the
prophets of Baal in Elijah’s day.
God’s
servant Elijah challenged the false prophets of the mythical god Baal to prove
his existence.
1
Kings 18:26-29 “Then (those prophets) called on the name of Baal from morning
till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no
response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At
noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said.
"Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling.
Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and
slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their
blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic
prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response,
no one answered, no one paid attention.”
Sometimes people
pray with many words as if by heaping up words they might better capture God’s
attention.
I have been
in prayer meetings where it seemed that some believed that if we could get
everyone praying at the same time and get a lot of noise resounding, energy
flowing and emotion showing, it was better prayer.
I have also been in prayer meetings where it seemed that some believed it
was only quiet, slow, Elizabethan English that opened God’s ears.
Some people
prattle on in their prayers because they think they have to get God’s attention
and coerce, cajole or earn his favor.
We
must not become legalistic in our praying – as if more prayer equals better
Christians.
Knowing that someone else prays hours a day ought not to make us feel spiritually inferior nor that person spiritually superior.
In fact our praying with many words may be nothing more than an expression of our distrust of God -
as if we feel we have to convince God to help us.
Or that He will only do so if we earn his favor by acting sufficiently needy and desperate by our cries and many words.
Some of you might remember Jesus parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18.
Doesn’t it teach that banging on the doors of heaven is the way to get God to act?
Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told his
disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor
cared about men. And there was a widow in that
town who kept coming to him with the plea, `Grant me justice against my
adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself,
`Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice,
so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming! And the Lord said,
"Listen to what the unjust judge says.
And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to
him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.
However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
In the parable we are likened to the widow who persistently asks for favor.
But it is important to see that God is not likened to the ego-centric, selfish judge but in fact God is contrasted with him.
Jesus is teaching that surely if such an evil person, as that judge, would give what the widow wanted, you can certainly expect your God to meet the needs of his chosen ones who ask.
God doesn’t have to be coerced.
What is Jesus getting at?
Many words
- few words, energetic – quiescent, loud - soft, celebrative or solemn; these
are not the keys to prayer.
Matthew 6:8 “Do not be
like them…”
They thought their prayers made the difference.
They thought the style, the length, and the persistence of their prayers is what moved their gods to act.
Their faith was not in their gods but in their praying.
Yes it is true, in
chapter 7, Jesus teaches that persistence in prayer is an expression of faith.
Matthew 7:7-8
“Ask and it
will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened
to you. For everyone who asks receives;
he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
It is not that persistence makes an unwilling God act, but that a willing
God is ready to act in response to his people who trust him.
Yes it is true, in
James 4:2, we are taught that God chooses to give some things only in response to prayer.
James 4:2
“You do not have because you do not ask God”
But we are not to assume that our badgering, our many words or babbling
is what finally moves God’s hands.
The point Jesus is
making, I believe, is that our understanding of God is reflected in our
praying.
What do we really believe about God?
Is the God of our prayers generous or stingy?
Their view of God was that he can and must be bought.
But says Jesus, your Father is not like that.
Matthew 6:8 “your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
“Father” here is the
Greek “pater” but it translates the Aramaic which was Jesus’ language.
Jesus word would
most likely have been, “Abba” an intimate familial term close to our “daddy” or
“papa”.
This term of intimacy between a child and his father was used into
adulthood.
It is the warmest Aramaic word for this relationship.
“The male
parent” or “Pa” doesn’t cut it.
The word “father” also
carries the idea of responsibility with it.
This “Father” of
ours is responsible for us, to guard, provide and guide.
Isaiah 65:24 “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking
I will hear”.
Most people, then and
now, have no concept of God as intimate and personal as this.
This “Father” in Jesus
mind, is the father in the story of the Prodigal Son.
·
This is the
‘father’ who grieves over his son’s choices, but doesn’t stand in the son’s
way.
·
This is the
“father” who waits through agonizing days and nights of his son’s rebellion.
·
This is the
“father” who, when he sees his son returning
home, runs to him with open arms
·
This is the father
who doesn’t demand payment but celebrates his son’s return.
The title “father” denotes our God as the one who goes before us and who turns us back and welcomes us home.
Helmut Thielicke wrote, “He is already there, even before
your need comes. He is already there
ahead of the waves that threaten to engulf you. I, your Savior, am already there, before your sins; you have only
to claim what lies ready for you to use.
For the blessing and the help and the salvation are there, ready at
hand. Don’t you see that all your
efforts, your chattering of empty phrases, your crying is like battering down a
door that is already open? Don’t you
see what a terrible distrust this is of him who has opened the door and is
waiting for you, as did the father of the prodigal son? What you are doing in these furious prayers
is like writing threatening letters to your Father, telling him he is obligated
to help you, when all the while this Father is thinking of you day and night
and waiting for the first sign that you are willing to come home. When you know that someone loves you and is
near to you, it does not require many words, but only a quiet sign, a glance, a
little suggestion, and he will understand.
Should it be any different with your Father? Your Father who know what you need before you ask him?” (Thielicke Life Can Begin Again 105)
We aren’t to pray as the pagans do.
We are to pray as children confident of a father’s love and willingness to do the very best for us.
My son is still young enough and I haven’t failed him enough times yet so that when he asks me for something, he expects that I will get it for him –he trusts me, he expects I want the best for him.
Now I want him to mature to the place where he will trust me even when I tell him what he wants isn’t best for him.
But the point is that his faith is in me, not in the way he asks.
God is not impressed
with much prayer or little prayer – he’s impressed with prayer in faith – our trust in his love and power not in our much praying.
We aren’t
concerned about technique,
we aren’t
concerned about how long we pray,
we aren’t
concerned about getting everything in order so that God will then be pleased
enough to respond to us.
I know a man and woman who have prayed for their sons for over 60 years.
They have asked God specifically to bring their sons to saving faith and obedience to God.
60 years!
It doesn’t appear that God has answered their prayers.
Why do they keep praying?
Because their faith is in a gracious God; their faith is not in the answer nor in the way they pray the prayer.
They will keep on praying because they trust God will do what is right and because God has called on them to express that trust in prayer.
Their faith is in God not in certain results.
Jesus says that is how we are to pray.
John Calvin
captured it well:
“Believers do not
pray with a view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting
him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he was reluctant. On the contrary, they pray in order that
they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in
meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their
anxieties by pouring the anxieties (on Him); in a word, that they may declare
that from him alone they hope and expect, both for themselves and for
others, all good things. (Calvin in his Commentary on the Harmony of the
Evangelists p314
The God you pray to – what is he like?
Is he a petulant God
waiting for you to get it right?
Is he a stingy God waiting
for you to deserve it?
Or is he your willing
father desiring your trust?
At the beginning of our time, I asked the significance
of these two statements:
Faith is prayer’s
foundation.
Prayer is a confession of
faith IN GOD!
It’s all about relationship.
Early on I also asked, “Do you lose hope in prayer?”
Or “Do you get bored in prayer?”
It’s all about relationship.
If we turn prayer into a
mechanism instead of a conversation we will lose hope or get bored.
But if it is a conversation
with our Father, communion with him, an expression of our trust in his love –
it makes all the difference.
Matthew
6:7-13
“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."