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White Rock SDA Church

Daniel Pel

The Hardest Prayer

Father in Heaven, I want to thank You for this opportunity to open Your Word again.

I want to thank You that You can speak to us through Your Holy Spirit.

And as we study together the prayer that You passed down to us, I pray that as we look at this powerful, beautiful prayer, that we may understand the significance of it and also how we can apply it in our lives.

We pray for Your Holy Spirit to guide us now into a knowledge of Your truth, for it is in Your name that we pray.

I'd like to invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Matthew, the first gospel book in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 6.

And in Matthew chapter 6, we have the famous sermon of Jesus, also known as the Sermon on the Mount.

But right in the middle of this Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 Jesus gives us a model prayer.

And we're going to study this prayer together and see what we can learn about this powerful and beautiful prayer.

Also a very hard prayer to pray as we are going to learn.

I entitled this message the hardest prayer.

But when we understand the power of it and we can apply it in our lives.

Truly it is indeed a prayer that gives us great strength in our spiritual experience.

So Matthew 6 and before we go actually into the prayer itself I want you to take notice of the words of Jesus just before He gives us this model prayer.

He actually gives us some instruction regarding prayer in general.

So, Matthew 6 we are going to pick it up right there in verse 5.

And again you can envision the scene here, Jesus is standing there on the mountain top, there are thousands of people listening to Him.

And Jesus says the following words, Matthew 6, verse 5, "'When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.

Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward." And when I read that I really get this mental picture in my mind what that must have looked like.

The scribes and Pharisees that outwardly were very, very careful to be correct and to be seen by others, to be acknowledged by others that wanted to be pious and spiritual, and yet inside they were not so really occupied with the will and way of God.

And so the picture that Jesus paints here is really a picture of the scribes and Pharisees that are looking for the acknowledgement of men.

They are looking to the acknowledgement of people around them.

He says they are standing on the corner street praying.

You can imagine a scribe or a Pharisee standing there on the corner of the street waiting for the person to come by, looking in both directions.

And right as the person comes they start praying.

Because they want to be heard and acknowledged.

And then Jesus says something remarkable, it says, they have their reward.

And that's exactly the reward that they just got, that person listening to them, that person hearing them, because in Heaven there is no reward for such a prayer.

And yet, Jesus has something better for us.

Listen to what He says as He continues to give us instruction regarding prayer.

Look at verse 6, "'But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." You see this is the contrasting picture that Jesus gives us.

The scribe and Pharisee that wants to be religious outwardly is going to pray in order for others to hear Him pray, and He wants the reward here and now.

But then Jesus contrasts this with the picture of the person that goes into their room and prays to their Heavenly Father.

That pours their heart out to God, not to be heard and seen by others, not to be acknowledged as spiritual and religious, but rather a pouring out of the heart to be empowered by God.

And Jesus says we are to pray in secret and our Father which hears in secret will reward us openly.

Quite a fascinating picture that Jesus gives us right before He gives us the model prayer.

He goes on in verse 7 to give more instruction regarding prayer.

He says, "'And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions, as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.'" You know it's interesting that the very prayer that Jesus gives us, known as the Lord's Prayer, is a prayer that has been vainly repeated on many occasions throughout the Christian history.

As a matter of fact I grew up in Holland and I actually went to a Roman Catholic primary school for some years.

And I remember very well that every morning before the classes would begin we would actually repeat this prayer, the Lord's Prayer.

And I just remember repeating it with my mouth, but not really thinking at all about the meaning of the words, or the meaning of the prayer.

And so it was a vain repetition that many I believe of my schoolmates and myself included were involved in just repeating it in order to repeat it because the teacher wanted us to repeat it, right?

And there are millions in our world today that are praying this prayer without considering the power of the words in that prayer.

Without considering the life-changing experience that this prayer can actually bring about once we fully embrace it and Allow God to do what he promises through this prayer.

And so instead of vain repetitions We want to have a deeper closer.

Look at this model prayer that Jesus has given us.

Jesus says, in this manner therefore pray.

I'm going to read it through, verse 9 to 13.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil 1.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Now we're going to look at this prayer together.

I want you to take notice how the prayer begins.

Jesus says, in this manner, therefore pray, Our Father in Heaven.

So, we have the privilege to address Our Father in Heaven.

When you think about it, the God that created the universe.

The God that created the earth in which we live and everything in it.

The God that holds the worlds in their orbits and knows the stars by name.

This is the God that we can call our Father.

And it's beautiful because Jesus gives us this model prayer and He says that we can pray our Father in Heaven.

Jesus Himself prayed my Father in Heaven which makes Jesus our brother.

If Jesus addresses His Father and we can address our Father in Heaven, Jesus is our Brother.

This is the close ties that we find as we are invited into as we look at this prayer.

Now, there are a lot of new ways of prayer that have been introduced in the Christian world in recent years.

And these new ways that have been introduced in Christianity are leading many astray and away from God's direct instruction as to how we are to address the Father.

And many people are being discouraged or disappointed with their prayer life.

And so when someone comes along and says, you know what there is a new way to pray, they will easily take whatever that may be.

And there has been spread within Christianity various forms of prayer known as breath prayers, centered prayers.

This all goes under the umbrella of what is known as spiritual formation.

And these things that look innocent are actually forms of prayer that are very contrary and different to the way that Jesus taught us how to pray.

And much of these centered prayers and breath prayers are really meditation forms that have now been revived.

And when you look at the origin of these meditation forms it goes straight back to Eastern Mysticism.

And so now Eastern Mysticism is creeping into the Christian church under the umbrella of spiritual formation, a new experience of prayer.

And so people are praying and entering into these meditation experiences.

What will happen is that they will endeavor to empty the mind and to bring the mind into an altered state of consciousness.

They will repeat words, sometimes words from Scripture, phrases from Scripture over, and over, and over again in order to come into this hypnotic, this altered state of consciousness in which so-called the spirit can speak to them.

And yet, Jesus has given us clear instruction as to how we are to pray.

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The Hardest Prayer

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