I can’t believe it but, in just four months Daniel will finish the classroom portion of his medical school studies. For the next two years he’ll go through several six to twelve week rotations that will give him a sampling of all the various types of medicine. His first rotation will be at Wright/Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio where he’ll study out-patient internal medicine. Next comes in-patient internal medicine and from there he’ll be traveling back and forth to military hospitals all over the country in order to study other areas of medical expertise: radiology, surgery, cardiology, psychiatry, pediatrics, oncology, obstetrics, etc. On each of these rotations he’ll spend his time with experts in these fields, learning from their example. All med school students go through rotations like this in the last half of their schooling both help them learn and also to help them decide which area of medicine they will specialize in.
You see, all the medical knowledge that mankind has accumulated down through the centuries-well it’s just too much for one person to grasp. Our brains aren’t big enough! And because of that doctors are forced to specialize. This is both good and bad at the same time. It’s good because it gives you and me expert doctors who know more about each of our unique medical problem, and it’s also bad because we have to drive all over the county to see them-plus the co-pay at a specialist is usually twice what you pay a “normal”doctor! But you know what I’m talking about. More and more when we go to our general practitioner he or she refers us to another doctor, someone who is an expert in our particular ailment, everything from allergies to cancer. And we pay the higher price because we value their expert knowledge.
We know that disease can be a life-changing thing, so when we are forced to deal with it we don’t want some medical “handy-man”. We don’t want a rookie. No, we want an expert. We want a doctor who knows what he or she is doing. I bring all this up because there was a day in the earthly ministry of Jesus in which His disciples saw our Lord’s expertise when it came to prayer. They saw how prayer benefited His life and ministry. They saw the peace and power it gave Him and they wanted this life-changing knowledge for themselves.
So in Luke 11:1 one of His followers, perhaps Peter, said, “Lord, You are obviously the expert so teach us how to pray.” In fact the Greek in this verse is an aorist imperative, which was used to imply a sense of urgency, so a more accurate translation of Peter’s request would be, “Lord teach us now to pray!”
Hank Hanegraaff writes,
“Peter’s words were both eager and expectant. Over and over again he had watched the Master withdraw to secluded places to pray. And he had seen the serenity Jesus exuded in the aftermath. He may have been uncertain of what made Christ’s face seem as though it glowed, but of one thing he was certain: whatever it was, he wanted it, and wanted it now!”
I think there was indeed an urgency in Peter’s request. He and his fellow Christ-followers realized that they were just “first-graders” when it came to prayer so with a great deal of earnestness they asked Jesus to share His expertise and their “prayer rotation” began with His answer. It is recorded both in Luke 11 and also in the Sermon on the Mount which we have of course been studying for the past few months, so take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 6 and follow along as I read verses 5-13.
5 – “…when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
6 – But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, …Who is unseen. Then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 – And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 – Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
9 – “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your Name, 10 – Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 – Give us today our daily bread.
12 – Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 – And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'”
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Now I, for one, have felt burdened over the past few months when it comes to our mastery of this particular spiritual discipline here at Redland. I’ll say more about this in next Sunday’s Vision sermon, but suffice it to say that I believe our church is entering into a crucial time in its history. We are about to be faced with monumental decisions as a church family-decisions that will determine how effective we will be in ministering to this community in the years to come, decisions that require us to boldly trust God. And to have this required boldness, to deepen our faith in God we need to learn, really learn to pray.
Let me put it this way: if we are to be the church God is calling us to be, we need a “prayer rotation.” We need to learn to pray correctly. We need to become prayer experts. When we pray correctly as Christians, we align ourselves with God’s purposes. When we humble ourselves and pray with the right attitude, we tap into the unlimited power of the Almighty. It is just as Martyn Lloyd-Jones puts it, “Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.”
Friends, over and over and over again the Bible teaches the plain fact that when we pray, God works through us in ways He wouldn’t otherwise. And the reverse is also true. When we don’t pray we limit what God can do through us. Well, I for one will not be satisfied to do only those things I can do on my own strength. No, I want the adventure of allowing God almighty to work through me. What about you? Do you want to be a church that is known for doing things that are “humanly possible” or would you rather be a church through whom God displays His wonder-working power?
Now of course God could do whatever He chooses without our prayer. But for some reason He has invited us to be His co-laborers. God has determined that He will use the prayers of His people to accomplish His purposes on this earth. As I said, this principle is displayed throughout the Bible. Over and over we see Almighty God working, acting in response to the prayers of His children.
Beginning with the Old Testament we see that:
- Prayer opened the Red Sea.
- Prayer brought water from the rock and bread from Heaven.
- Prayer made the sun stand still.
- Prayer brought fire from the sky to consume Elijah’s drenched sacrifice.
- Prayer overthrew armies and healed the sick.
- Prayer raised the dead.
And then, David Jeremiah writes: “I scoured the New Testament, looking for things God does in ministry that are not prompted by prayer. Do you know what I found? Nothing. I don’t mean I had trouble finding an item or two; I mean I found nothing. Everything God does in the work of ministry He does through prayer. Consider:
- Prayer is the way you defeat the devil (Luke 22:32; James 4:7).
- Prayer is the way you get the lost saved (Luke 18:13).
- Prayer is the way you acquire wisdom (James 1:5).
- Prayer is the way a backslider gets restored (James 5:16-20).
- Prayer is how the saints get strengthened (Jude 20; Matthew 26:41).
- Prayer is the way we get laborers out to the mission field (Matthew 9:38).
- Prayer is how we cure the sick (James 5:13-16).
- Prayer is how we accomplish the impossible (Mark 11:23-24).
And Dr. Jeremiah is right. Everything we do that is worth doing, everything God wants to do in the church, everything He wants to do in your life and my life, it all comes as a result of one thing: prayer. It’s like that old bit of prose says:
“What we do for the Lord is entirely dependent upon what we receive from the Lord, and what we receive from the Lord is entirely dependent upon what we are in the Lord, and what we are in the Lord is entirely dependent upon the time we spend alone with the Lord in prayer.”
The fact is it is impossible for us to do or to be anything that God wants us to do or be apart from prayer and, as the first disciples learned, the best way to learn to pray effectively is to consult the expert: Jesus Christ.
Well, let’s get on with our own “prayer rotation” then. What does the Expert on prayer tell us when it comes to learning to pray effectively, meaningfully? How should we pray if we want to change ourselves? How should we pray if we want to change our situation? How should we pray if we want to join God in His great work?
I want to suggest three answers to these questions-answers that I’ve taken from Jesus’ teaching on prayer here in the Sermon on the Mount.
(1) First, our Lord says that meaningful prayer-effective prayer-begins in secret.
Look at verses 5 and 6 again where Jesus says, “…when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, Who is unseen. Then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Now before we go any further, I want you to notice that Jesus assumes His disciples will pray. He says, “When you pray” not “if you pray.” Our Lord obviously expects His followers to pray regularly. This is part and parcel of what it means to be His follower. We must pray, we must spend time with Him regularly! This make sense because anything you want to excel in you must do over and over again. Let me put it this way: to be an effective pray-er you must practice prayer. I know it’s a little scary, but I think this is why Doctors refer to their work as their practice-it’s something they get better at the more they practice doing it. I just hope they’ve had enough practice when they get around to treating me!
But I digress. Jesus says the best place to practice prayer-is secretly. Or, as Hank Hanegraaff puts it, “The secret to prayer is secret prayer.” And as I inferred earlier, Jesus set the example in this. As Luke 5:16 says, Jesus, “…often withdrew to lonely places to be by Himself and pray.”
Now, why the secret stuff? Why pray in private? Well first off this particular prayer principle reminds us that the purpose of prayer is not to impress others, like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who prayed on busy street corners at set times every day. No, he purpose of prayer is for us to be alone in conversation with God. We do not pray to communicate to others how holy we are. We pray to communicate with God how holy He is. First and foremost prayer is not a spectator sport. It’s not something we engage in to give off signals of our own spiritual superiority. Now, these days you and I don’t pray on street corners. We would say that practice was a bit odd, but we still need to heed Jesus’ warning, because so many times our public prayers are filled with things we are saying to each other instead of to God. Someone once described an eloquent prayer in a church in New England like this: “Reverend Jones presented the most beautiful prayer ever offered before a Boston audience.” Sounds like Rev. Jones was performing more than praying. But before you criticize him, I challenge you, the next time you are praying in public, listen to your prayer and ask yourself, “Am I talking to God or to everyone else in the room? Am I trying to tell God something or am I trying to tell my hearers something about God? How much of what I am saying is directed Heavenward and how much is directed “pew-ward?” Dr. Reuben A Torrey warns, “We should never utter one syllable of prayer, either in public or in private until we are definitely conscious that we have come into the presence of God and are actually praying to Him.”
The story is told of the time Bill Moyers was a special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was asked to say grace before a meal at the White House. As Moyers began praying softly, the President interrupted and said, “Speak up, Bill! Speak up! I can’t hear you!” Moyers stopped in mid-sentence and firmly replied, “I wasn’t addressing you, Mr. President!”
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that public prayer is wrong. Several times in the Gospels both Jesus and His disciples prayed publicly, and these prayers are recorded for us in the Bible. So we are to pray publicly. We are to gather together to pray. But we must strive to make our public prayers genuine prayers, and the best way to make public prayer genuine is to have a healthy private prayer life. This is one reason that, whenever possible, I prepare my public prayers ahead of time. I write them down and pray them privately before I pray them publicly. Of course we can’t always do that, but whenever we pray publicly we must pause and concentrate on talking to God.
Evelyn Christenson addresses this issue by saying that the ratio between our public and private prayers should be like the ratio between the part of an iceberg that is seen above water and the part that is unseen below the surface. She says, “Prayer should be like those icebergs with about one ninth showing in our public group praying and eight-ninths out of sight in our secret closets.”
And then, another more obvious reason Jesus says it is important to get alone in prayer is that being in an inner room shuts out distractions, things like: music, phones, kids, dogs-anything that can break our concentration and keep us from hearing the often still, small voice of God.This means that one thing we need to do to master this spiritual discipline is to find a quiet place to talk uninterrupted with God. To pray effectively, meaningfully, we each need to find such a place and make it our own. And, as you use it regularly I think you will find that your personal, private prayer place takes on a special kind of aura. Whether your place is your bedroom or a corner of your office or an unused stairwell at work or the laundry room, the more you use your prayer place the more special this place will become. Eventually it will become to you what the Garden of Gethsemane became to Jesus, a holy place, the place where our Holy God meets with you.
When I was a student at Southern Seminary, Norton Hall, the main classroom building, had a closet that was set apart for students to pray. They had carpeted it and put a kneeling bench in there and a place for you to journal your prayers. I think they even had installed special sound-dampening insulation because it was a very quiet place to pull away from our hectic seminary lives and go to be alone with God, and like other students I went there frequently. I went there when I faced a difficult exam or when I needed guidance on a church issue or when Sue and I faced financial challenges. And you know, I don’t think it was my imagination, but this closet seemed to be special, hallowed ground. In my mind it “glowed” with a unique quietness, because so many struggling disciples went there to talk to our Holy and loving Heavenly Father.
When Joni Eareckson Tada first became a quadriplegic as a result of a diving accident ,she says she would often picture herself lying on a straw mat by the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, that pool where so many invalids went for healing. For hours on end as she pictured this, she would plead with God for a miraculous healing. It seemed in those days as if God did not reply. Thirty years later she received a revelation of sorts during a trip to Jerusalem with her husband Ken. He pushed her wheelchair down the steps of the Via Dolorosa, made a left turn at the sheep’s gate, walked by St. Anne’s church, and ran straight into the ruins of the Pool of Bethesda. While resting her arms on the guard rail overlooking those dusty ruins, Joni’s mind flashed back thirty years earlier when she had pictured herself lying on a mat in this very place. Suddenly like a thunderbolt she was stricken by the realization that God given her a far better response to her prayers than the one she asked for.Overwhelmed with emotion she began to thank Him for not healing her. You see, God had miraculously turned her wheelchair into her secret place. That day Joni said she could have cried out, “O Wheelchair I bless thee!” because it was in the “prison” of her wheelchair that she learned the secret of secret prayer. Unable to run here and there with perfectly formed limbs, she had spent countless hours practicing the principles of prayer. And as her life grew ever richer and deeper, she was enabled to bless multitudes out of the overflow of a life spent in the secret place. It was in her secret place that she discovered there were more important things than walking. And as she grew in intimacy with her Creator, she learned to bless the “cross” that crafted her character. She treasured her injury because it made it possible for her to experience the invaluable treasure of undistracted time alone with God.
This is one of the blessings of hardship and heartache. They have a way of pushing us to private places with God. By the way, the Greek word here for “room” is a word that was used to describe a storeroom where valuable treasures were kept. I think this is a perfect word to use because the place we pray-our secret place-is a place where we receive precious things, power from God, Guidance, His companionship. So, if you don’t have one, get one. Get a secret place where you can learn to experience the amazing power of secret prayer.
(2) The second thing Jesus says is that, meaningful prayer is SINCERE.
Look at verses 7 and 8: “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."
In this part of His teaching one thing our Lord is saying is that meaningful prayers do not include meaningless repetition and empty phrases. He says that praying like this is praying like the pagans pray. You see, pagan religions worshiped “gods” that supposedly could be charmed with incantations that were repeated over and over again.
A perfect example of this is recorded for us in 1st Kings 18-the story of the prophet Elijah’s competition on Mt. Carmel with the prophets of Baal. Do you remember that story? Verse 26 says, “Then they [the pagan priests] called on Baal from morning until noon, ‘O Baal, answer us!’ they shouted [over and over again]. But there was no response; no one answered.”
Jesus is saying, God isn’t like some man-made baal, some false god that you have to manipulate or coerce with repeated babblings to get Him to hear you and help you. Do you remember how Elijah teased the prophets of Baal? In verse 27 he said, “Shout louder! Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened!” Well of course Baal didn’t answer. He was and is a false god, something pagan men thought up. All Elijah had to do to get a response from the one true God was to pray sincerely to make his needs known once, and instantly fire came from heaven to consume his water-logged sacrifice. That’s the way our God, the one true God is. He doesn’t pay closer attention because we use more verbiage, nor does it take a continuous stream of repetitious words like some mysterious mantra, to make Him sit up and notice. God loves us! He welcomes our prayers! Prayer is not an effort to overcome our Heavenly Father’s unwillingness to respond by wearying Him with our words. God doesn’t want our vain repetitions; He wants real communication. When we pray, He wants us to put our heart into it.
Someone once said that “One sentence burdened with the heart’s desire is dearer to God than an hour’s rehearsing of words and phrases with no longing behind them.” Prayer is not bargaining or pleading. As Douglas V. Steer, a Quaker scholar wrote, “It’s not a question of changing God’s mind by exercising some magical influence or spell.”
Now you may be thinking, “Well, Mark, I don’t pray like a pagan. I don’t use empty words in my prayers.” Well, think again, because the truth is it is so very easy for us to get caught up in using the same jargon or terminology in our prayers over and over again. Some of these popular prayer phrases may sound appropriate, spiritual-even pious. But after a while, if we are not careful, we can find ourselves stringing together a bunch of religious “Christianese” phrases to form what Bill Hybels refers to as “autopilot prayer.”
And you know what I’m talking about-the same words and phrases uttered over and over again by rote with no sincerity behind them.
Have you ever played the game “Taboo?” It’s like “Password” but they give you a list of words you can’t say, and if you do, your opponents buzz you with an annoying buzzer and you lose points. Well, I think if we applied this principle to prayer and had a list of taboo words like “Bless” or “praise…” or generalized phrases like “forgive me of my sins” or “be with us in this difficult time,” many of us would have a hard time knowing what to say to God. You see, we use words and phrases like that too much, so much that they have become meaningless to us. We must learn that Jesus invites us to talk with the Father authentically, personally, reverently, earnestly, sincerely.
A few years ago Sue and I got into the habit of tuning in to the TV Land Channel, because at about the time we usually would turn in for the night they showed episodes of Leave It To Beaver. I loved watching, but as I did I was reminded of how much I despised Eddie Haskel. And the thing that bugs me about him most is that in addressing his elders, he sounds so respectful. He knows and uses all the right “parent-pleasing” phrases, but they are all empty of sincerity. It’s just his way of trying to manipulate Ward and June and of course they aren’t taken in. They know what Eddie’s doing and they hate to hear him talk like that.
God hates it when we talk to Him in that way, using all the current religious words and phrases without any honesty behind them. God wants us to talk to Him. But he wants sincerity in our words and phrases. His heart is not touched by vague and general religious platitudes. Prayers filled with lots of words repeated over and over again will not get you anywhere with God. They sound just as monotonous to Him as they do to others. So meaningful prayer, effective prayer is secret-it is sincere.
(3) And then Jesus says one more thing. Meaningful prayer is structured according to a specific pattern.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that God doesn’t hear the impromptu prayers that we throw together quickly in times of panic or distress. Of course He does! We don’t have to perfect our prayers for God to listen to them and answer them. As Richard Foster puts it, in the same way that a little child can’t draw a bad drawing in their parent’s eyes, as long as we are sincere, we can’t pray a bad prayer in our Heavenly Father’s eyes! But the prayer that benefits us most as disciples who are striving to become more like Jesus is a prayer that follows a specific pattern. And that is exactly what Jesus gives us in verses 9-13 when He says-and say it with me:
‘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. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'”
This well-known and much-loved prayer, this prayer that we refer to as The Lord’s Prayer, was meant to be a prayer guide, a model for us to use so that we can learn to pray more effectively. Jesus didn’t give us this prayer as a paragraph to be recited. Remember? He just warned His followers against using repetitious phrases. Plus, the disciples asked Him to teach them “to pray” not to teach them “a prayer.” No, this is a pattern to follow, a pattern that shows us the proper attitude of prayer. The better we are at following this pattern, the more we understand and embrace its principles, the more meaningful our prayer life becomes and the more it positively impacts our lives-as well as the lives of those who know us. Max Lucado puts it this way:
“In these verses Christ has provided more than a model for prayer-He has provided a model for living. These words do more than tell us what to say to God; They tell us how to exist with God.”
And I would agree! I like how one unknown author emphasized this principle in his own summary of the Lord’s prayer. He said:
“I cannot say ‘our’ if I live only for myself.
I cannot say ‘Father’ if I do not endeavor each day to act like His child.
I cannot say ‘Hallowed be Your name’ if I am playing around with sin.
I cannot say ‘Your kingdom come’ if I want my way all the time.
I cannot say ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ if I am trusting in myself instead of in God’s provision.
I cannot say ‘Forgive us our debts’ if I am nursing a grudge or withholding forgiveness from someone else.
I cannot say ‘lead us not into temptation’ if I deliberately put myself in its path.”
Well, do you begin to get a taste of all the things we can get from our study of this pattern for prayer? Do you see how it can positively impact our life? Do you begin to identify with Peter and the others who eagerly asked Jesus to share His expertise? Does it make you hungry to learn?
Now would you pray with me the four word prayer that Jesus’ first disciples prayed when they felt this way? “Lord, teach us to pray!” Good! Thank you! I believe God will answer this prayer. In fact, our prayer rotation continues February 4!
Now, as we come to sing our closing hymn, I would remind you that in giving us this pattern for prayer Jesus taught that our daily conversations with God should always include a time in which we submit ourselves to His will. We should always pray something like, “God, Your kingdom come, Your will be done in my marriage, my parenting, my career, my finances, my relationships. Your will be done in these areas. You’re the boss. You lead and I’ll follow.”
And right now I want to urge you to pray that prayer. Ask God to reveal His will for your life and then commit to do what He says by re-aligning your will with His.
If God’s answer to your prayer this morning involves your joining this church, or if you need to publicly profess your faith in Jesus Christ, then come forward and tell me now as we sing.