June 28, 2023
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
June 28, 2023
“And when you pray you must not be like the hypocrites. For they
love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that
they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received
their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and
pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in
secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases
as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their
many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need
before you ask him.”
Matthew 6:5-8
This is where our Lord teaches us how to pray but also how not to
pray. He also gives us some negatives as well as positives. I want to
just pick up that section where our Lord teaches us how we must not pray
and why we should not be like the pagans or like the hypocrites.
Again,
I think we could say that every person who has ever lived on planet
earth knows there's a god and we know that from Romans 1. Men have
general revelation so they can see the things that God made which
testify of God himself, his power, his wisdom, and his goodness. God has
also given sinners an inner witness, not only an outside witness of
creation but an inner witness of conscience and the law of God has been
written on the heart and that's emphasized in Romans chapter 2.
But
there's another way in which God gives witness of himself and that is
by his people. Remember what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, that
we are the light of the world, that we are the salt of the earth. When
men see us, Jesus says they will glorify your Father in heaven. And one
of the ways in which we glorify God and let others know about God, is
by our lives, of course, but also by our praying. Praying in front of
non-Christians, unconverted people can be a good way of getting them to
know about our God.
But here's the big question, what makes the
Christian praying so different from everybody else who prays, from the
world, from the pagan, from the Hindu, from the Muslim, from the Mormon?
What makes the Christian praying so different? Why does our praying
glorify God? Why can our praying be good works? And you certainly can't
say that about anybody else who's not a Christian.
Well, let me
give you 3 reasons. Why are Christian prayers God glorifying prayers?
Why are they different from the major religions, whether it's the
Buddhist, the Muslim, the Hindu?
1. A Christian prays
biblically. He should, his prayer should be shaped by his Bible. Robert
Murray McShane, some of you probably have heard of him, he was a
Scottish pastor, but here's what he said, (He died at early age of 28)
“Turn the Bible into prayer is the best way to pray.” And I think the
Lord Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer for that very reason, but also the
Psalms. The Psalms are 150 prayers. You could take any one of those
Psalms and you can pray them. That would be a good practice, just take a
psalm and begin to pray through a psalm. But that's one of the reasons
why our prayers are different from the prayers of the pagan or any other
religion. We pray the Bible, at least we should be praying the Bible.
2.
The second thing that should make our praying different from everybody
else's praying and God glorifying, is that we pray Trinitarian prayers.
That doesn't mean we're always verbalizing that, but consciously
we should be thinking, “I'm coming to one God, but a three-person God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You find that in Ephesians 3, Paul prays a
Trinitarian prayer. Look at what he says, he prays to the Father that
the church or the people of God there in Ephesus, “would be strengthened
by the Spirit.” So he prays to the Father, he mentions the Father, that
they would be strengthened by the Spirit so the Son would dwell in
their hearts by faith. So he brings in the three-person God. He does the
same in Ephesians 2, “For through Jesus,” he says, “we both, Jew and
Gentile, have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Again, he brings in
the three persons of the Trinity when he prays and that should again be a
significant difference in our praying. We pray Trinitarian prayers.
Listen to John Bunyan. John Bunyan built his definition of prayer on the
Trinitarian structure. This is what he says, “Prayer is a sincere,
sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God the
Father through Christ in the strengths and assistance of the Holy
Spirit.” What makes your prayer, my prayer different? Why are our
prayers God glorifying? And why can they be good works? The Christian
prays his Bible, the Christian prays to a triune God.
3. But
something else that makes our prayer distinctive from all other praying
and that's this, a Christian prays with grace. What grace do we need to
pray? Well, we need faith, right? The Bible says, “He who comes to God
must believe that he is.” That's faith, faith believes that God is. We
must believe there's a Savior, we must believe we pray in the name of
Christ. We must believe we have the help of the Spirit. We pray by
faith, but with the grace of faith. We also pray with the grace of
humility. Think what Peter says, “Humble yourself under the mighty hand
of God that he may exalt you at the proper time casting all your anxiety
on him because he cares for you.” So he says, “Humble yourself, and
cast your anxiety or care upon the Father.” And then Jesus in the Garden
of Gethsemane certainly was praying with that grace of humility when he
prayed, “Not my will, but your will be done.”
So we need grace,
the grace of faith, the grace of humility. What about the grace of
love? Paul mentions love in Romans 12 when he talks about love. Love
prays for one another and we are to do that when we pray to God because
we love God. We pray for lost sinners because we love the lost sinners.
We love our friends, our family, we love our enemies. That's why we
pray, “We show our love for our enemies,” Jesus said, “by praying for
our enemies.” The grace of love should drive us to the throne of grace.
And then there's also the grace of perseverance. Why don't we give up?
Why do we keep on praying? In Luke 18 Jesus devotes a whole parable to
this matter of persevering prayer.
No one can pray like you,
Christian. No one can pray like you. Why? Because you're a child of God.
You can pray the Bible because you know the Bible; you can pray to the
triune God and you can pray with grace. So I hope that encourages us to
pray more regularly, more confidently, because we can pray like no one
else can pray.
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