And When You Pray
Download MP3Once again, good morning. Today, we begin a new sermon series on the lord's prayer. And over the next 9 weeks, we're going to hear from different preachers, both pastors and lay elders, as we take a close look at Jesus' instructions to his followers on the essential Christian practice of prayer. And every week we will begin our time in the word by praying together the Lord's prayer. And so that's what we're about to do.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm going to lead us in a few words, opening prayer there, and then we will pray these words together of the Lord's prayer, they're in your worship guide, on the front of your worship guide there. And so let us now go to the Lord together in prayer. Almighty God, grant us the faith to trust you, the grace to love you, and the confidence to hope in you alone. And by your spirit, would you make these words more than words and lead us to the throne of Jesus, our king, who himself taught us to pray. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Jeffrey Heine:Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm very excited about this new series. Not only will we get to hear from a number of voices that we don't usually hear from on Sunday mornings, but we also get to focus, truly focus in on a brief section of scripture. As you know, at Redeemer, we we usually, in in 9 weeks, we would cover quite a bit of scripture in 9 weeks. But here, we're going to focus in just on these few verses where Jesus teaches his followers how to pray. The lord's prayer is recorded in both Matthew and Luke's gospels in the New Testament, and the prayer also appeared, a half a century later in an important early church writing called the Didache, the the Lord's teaching, which was a significant collection of early Christian instruction.
Jeffrey Heine:And the language used in these presentations of the Lord's Prayer have differences, but the majority of the text is the same in all three. The likeliest reason for some of these differences in wording is because Jesus would have taught this instruction to his followers, his disciples, in the Aramaic language, and it would have been translated by these authors into the Greek language during the writing of the gospels. So for example, the common Jewish idiom at that time of talking about sin as a debt appears in Matthew's gospel. But it is translated as sin in Luke's gospel, which was written for a gentile Greek audience. So why bring that up, especially here at the start?
Jeffrey Heine:Well, I would imagine that a few of you, when we were praying the prayer just a few moments ago, were looking ahead to see which version we were going to be reading so you would get it right. So because I'm sure that some of you have the words of the Lord's Prayer deep in your bones from praying at a church every Sunday, or if you went to a Christian school and you recited it every day, there's no need to be alarmed when you see these differences in your Bibles, or when we pray the Lord's prayer together, and you have some other wording that is just locked into your memory. I'm sure some of you have been in a church service or a wedding in a different denomination, and and it comes time for the Lord's prayer. And half the congregation is saying debtors and others are saying sin and another portion is saying trespasses and the rest are just surprised that everyone seems to both know and not know the same prayer. But regardless of how familiar you are or unfamiliar you are with the lord's prayer, I believe that over the next 9 weeks, the Lord will meet us in these few verses, and in this prayer, and he will shape, and maybe even reshape the way that we think about prayer, and how we value prayer, and how we engage in prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:And during this series, we will chiefly be walking through the prayer as accounted for in Matthew's gospel. But as we introduce this series today, I'd like for us to briefly look at both Matthew and Luke's accounts and understand these two contexts for us, wherein Jesus taught his small group of disciples and then also a broader group of followers how to pray. So first, in Matthew's gospel, in chapter 6 of Matthew's gospel, Jesus is teaching what is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of teaching that Jesus gave to a gathering of people, people who were committed disciples, who were, dedicated followers, but also curious skeptics. It's helpful to remember the diverse audience that Jesus was addressing in this teaching.
Jeffrey Heine:Not everyone he was speaking to believed what he was saying or believed that he had the authority to teach the things that he was teaching. And after instructing the group on the holy way to give an offering, the holy way to fast before the Lord, he turns his attention to prayer. So in the Lord's prayer in Matthew, it's presented by Jesus as he's offering this direction, this instruction on what it looks like to worship God, to worship him in spirit and in truth. And he's emphasizing through multiple examples that a worshiping heart is not looking for the praise or attention of other people, but a truly worshiping heart is looking to praise and honor God alone. That is the context of the Lord's prayer instruction in Matthew's gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:The Lord's prayer in Luke's gospel, it begins with Jesus praying off on his own. This was a regular occurrence for Jesus. We read in the gospels that Jesus would often go off on his own to a quiet place to pray. Sometimes it was late in the evening, and other times it was early in the morning. But the gospels give us numerous accounts of Jesus going off to pray alone or at times with a few disciples away from the crowds.
Jeffrey Heine:And in Luke's account in chapter 11, when Jesus finishes his time in prayer, one of the disciples says to him, lord, teach us to pray. This eager disciple had seen Jesus off praying alone. He had prayed with Jesus before, and he had heard Jesus in prayer. And in light of all he had seen and heard, he wanted to learn how to pray like Jesus. And it's from this disciple's request that Jesus offers this instruction on prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:And this leads to the primary goal of this sermon series. It's the reason why we're gonna spend these next 9 weeks in this brief passage together, and that is this, to learn to pray. No matter how familiar you are with the Lord's prayer, no matter the consistency or inconsistency of your prayer life, every follower of Jesus needs to learn more from Jesus about how to pray. But what's so important about prayer? Let's be honest.
Jeffrey Heine:A lot of people in the world don't think about prayer at all, and sometimes even Christians. We need to learn to pray because prayer is not the default in the world around us, but the Christian is expected to pray beyond just times of extreme need or crisis. The Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, once said that to be a Christian is to be a person of prayer. The 2 are inseparable. And if the 2 are inseparable, then we need to learn to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:So I want us to consider three reasons why we need to learn to pray. There's another way of putting this. Three reasons why you need to show up every week for this series. Right? Three reasons why we need to learn to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:Now I know some of you like to have all the points of a sermon upfront, kind of know where we're going. And if that's you, I have disappointed and frustrated you many times over the years, because I don't like to do that. However, for you, I will, just this once. So the three reasons we need to learn to pray. Number 1, we are invited by god to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:Number 2, we know prayer is difficult. And 3, we want to pray rightly. And though it goes against every fiber of my being, I'm going to say them again. Number 1, we are invited to pray. Number 2, we know prayer is difficult.
Jeffrey Heine:And 3, we want to pray rightly. So we need to learn to pray because we are invited by God to pray. Now I know that when it comes to talking about prayer, it can come across, at least in a sermon and at first, that it's the same as when you go to the dentist and they ask if you've been flossing. When the dentist asks you, have you been flossing? You say, of course.
Jeffrey Heine:Of of course. Of course. I've been I'm not an animal. Of course, I have been flossing, sometimes more than twice a day. I just I love it.
Jeffrey Heine:I I of course. Of course. And then you remember that they are about to look in your mouth with a giant flashlight, and they are going to absolutely know how regularly you've been flossing. And so when the topic of flossing just comes up, it's just a reminder of how bad you are at flossing. And it's a reminder that's just packed with guilt and shame.
Jeffrey Heine:And that's how we can think about the topic of prayer. But that's not how Jesus responds to his followers when he teaches them about prayer. In fact, in both the Matthew and Luke's passages, the grand assumption about prayer is that followers of Jesus are people who want to pray. He does not say if. He's not laying out an argument for the divine benefits of prayer to convince you of it.
Jeffrey Heine:He just says when you pray. For many of us, we need to think differently about prayer. We need to dismantle the category in our minds that places prayer as a work that we are somehow guilted into doing, and recategorize prayer as a gift that we are to receive. We are invited by God to pray. Prayer is not a work for us to do, it is a response to the work that God is doing.
Jeffrey Heine:God has revealed himself to us as father, son, and spirit. And in this divine revelation, God has invited us into relationship through the reconciling work of Jesus. Prayer is a gift to be received, a response to the work that God has already done, that he's doing now, and that he has promised to do in the future. Prayer is not a work itself. It's a response to the work of God.
Jeffrey Heine:So that means that prayer is not simply an action for us to do, it is a reaction. The words of prayer out of your mouth are reaction conversation. And not only is it a conversation that he started, that he initiated, but he has also promised his attention in our prayers. The pivotal truth that makes prayer a precious gift from God to be received is that God has promised that he will listen and answer our prayers. That's what makes prayer so significant.
Jeffrey Heine:God invites us into this place of relationship, and he promises his attention and his response back to us. There isn't really a point of prayer if God's attention is unsure. There isn't a point to prayer if his attention is questionable. There isn't a point to prayer if God's attention is conditional on our own worthiness in that moment to be heard. But because prayer is an invitation from God that comes to us through Jesus, And because of Jesus, we can know God's attention is certain.
Jeffrey Heine:We are heard not because of the worthiness of our selves, but because of the worthiness of Jesus, and he is making his worthiness our own. The Heidelberg Catechism was a discipleship tool that was written in the mid 1500. It was organized in a question and answer response format. And a good bit of it is actually on the topic of prayer. And the very last question and the very last answer in the Heidelberg Catechism is question 129, and it reads as follows.
Jeffrey Heine:Question, what does the word amen mean? Answer. Amen means it is true and certain. It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I desire what I pray for. Let me say it again.
Jeffrey Heine:It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I desire what I pray for. In other words, the certainty of God's attention to your prayer is even more certain than your desire for the thing that you are praying about. God's attention is more certain, more sure than your knowledge of your desire and your need, and you know your need. You know it. There's no question to you about your need.
Jeffrey Heine:And this catechism is reminding us that even as much as we know our need, we can know even more with greater certainty that God is listening and will respond, Which means that if God truly wants you to be in this conversation with him, then surely he must be ready to receive you wherever you are today, at your best and at your absolute worst. Let me assure you that he is ready. If God is inviting you into prayer, if he's initiating this conversation, then he must be ready to hear the raw feed of your soul, wherever you might be today. No matter how happy or angry or joyful or wrong you may be, he is ready to hear you. He's ready for your shouts and for your songs.
Jeffrey Heine:He's ready for your screams and for your praise. He's ready for your cries and for your gratitude. And in prayer, you posture your heart to be ready to surrender to the one who made you, who loves you, and who without fail is redeeming you. We need to learn to pray because prayer is a gift. It's an invitation from God to place our trust in him and go into that holy and intimate connection.
Jeffrey Heine:2nd, we need to learn to pray because prayer is difficult. The 20th century Welsh pastor, Martyn Lloyd Jones, once said, everything we do in the Christian life is easier than prayer. Giving money? Tell me how much, and I'll write a check. Serving?
Jeffrey Heine:Just tell me what to do. I'll go do it. Going on mission, just tell me where to go. I'll book a flight. Studying, just tell me what book to read.
Jeffrey Heine:I'll read it. But why is prayer so hard? How can all of those things be easier than prayer? Can't a small child pray? Well, Lloyd Jones went on to say, ultimately, a person discovers the real condition of their spiritual life when they examine themselves in private and they are alone with God.
Jeffrey Heine:In prayer, our souls are laid bare before God. We do not get the quick reward of attention from other people, praise from other people. No one is impressed. No one will applaud your private prayers. It is as intimate and vulnerable and bare as a human soul can be.
Jeffrey Heine:There's no room for show, no vibrato, no ego, no gaining honor like we might in public places of prayer where someone might be impressed with our eloquence or our biblical knowledge. No, in those places of private prayer, there's no room for that self serving motive. There's nothing like that to gain, and yet it is the place of the greatest possible gain in all of existence. It's the place of holy connection with god himself. Boy Jones also said, who was a, tremendous preacher, but he said that preaching is easier than prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:Consider that. Preaching, what some of you might think is a great challenging task. Prayer is way more difficult than preaching. I assure you that for me, preaching is is quite difficult, but it is not as difficult as being alone in the secret place in prayer with God 1 on 1. This comparatively is far easier.
Jeffrey Heine:There's also a good chance that maybe somebody will come and say something kind afterwards, and something to kinda boost my ego or encourage me, at best, at worst, boost that ego. I might get some attention. I might get some praise. I could gain something from that, but that place of quiet prayer alone with God, those human cravings do not find their place. This is why we need to learn to pray, because prayer is difficult.
Jeffrey Heine:That's why the disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray. They saw firsthand how Jesus rose early and stayed up late in prayer. They heard how Jesus talked to the father. They beheld this relationship of the son and the father, and they wanted it for themselves because they knew they didn't pray like that. And so they wanted to learn to learn to pray like Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:And so I ask you, have you ever felt that kind of dissatisfaction in your own prayer life? Have you ever heard these prayers of Jesus before the father and wondered, how do I pray like that? Because I know I don't pray like that. If you have, then you will find good company with these disciples of Jesus. And it's an encouraging sign that dissatisfaction with prayer is an encouraging sign, because it means that you long for something greater, something of infinite value that is a deeper connection, a deeper relationship, a deeper conversation with God.
Jeffrey Heine:If you are discouraged with your prayer life, let that discouragement lead you not to guilt, but to that eagerness of prayerfulness before the Lord. I had a mentor in college named Bob Warren. He used to play basketball for the San Antonio Spurs, and after he retired, he returned to western Kentucky to be a pig farmer in Hardin, Kentucky. And that's where I met him. He loved to teach the Bible, and I would go to his farm every Tuesday night for bible study.
Jeffrey Heine:And one thing he taught us was this, guilt motivates temporarily, but grace motivates permanently. We can talk about prayer this week. We can talk about it next week and talk about the next. And and we might get better at prayer this week. We might be able to guilt in and have that same, I'm gonna floss more.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm gonna do great. I'm gonna do the work. I'm gonna buckle down. And maybe this week, guilt will get you to pray more. But when you behold the grace of Jesus, that grace motivates you eternally, permanently.
Jeffrey Heine:It pushes you further into it. The more you behold that grace and you go to him in prayer, the more you will behold that grace and go to him in prayer. That is where the desire is born, in grace, not guilt. And that's why Jesus took the time to teach his disciples how to pray. He didn't shame them.
Jeffrey Heine:He did not ignore them. He didn't say it's easy, figure it out. How do you not know that by now? Haven't you been hanging around me long enough? He took the time to teach them how to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:Prayer is difficult because it is a vulnerable and intimate place, Because in prayer, we cannot rest on our own merit, our own accomplishments, our own worthiness. Prayer is a radically humble and radically audacious response to what Jesus alone has accomplished. And in prayer, we forsake our own merit, our own works, our thoughts of our own worthiness, and we trust holy in the person, Jesus. Yes, prayer is simply talking to God. The mechanics are quite easy.
Jeffrey Heine:But the dissatisfaction that we can often feel with the depth and consistency of our prayer lives tells us that we have a great deal more to learn and things to grow in. No matter how long, how many years you've been following Jesus, we still need him to teach us to pray. We need to learn to pray because we are invited by God to pray and because we know prayer is difficult. And 3rd, we need to learn to pray because we want to pray rightly. The idea that we want to pray rightly implies that there's a wrong way to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:And that can be a tricky thing to wrap our heads around. How is it that we can do this good right thing in a bad wrong way? How can prayer be wrong? We will look at this in greater detail next week with one of our lay elders, Caleb Chancey, is gonna be preaching on the first two cautions that Jesus gives in Matthew chapter 6 before offering the pattern of prayer, the Lord's prayer. Jesus gives two warnings on how not to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't pray like the hypocrites. Don't pray like the pagans. There's a wrong way to pray and a right way to pray. And we need to know the difference. Part of the caution that Jesus tells his listeners in the Sermon on the Mount is that there are ways that people pray that is self serving.
Jeffrey Heine:Some people pray in public for the attention and the praise of humans, and those are hypocrites, Jesus says. And he warns his disciples, don't pray like that. Other people, they pray to vague and unknown gods. Those are pagans. Those are prayers that are useless because they are not in response to what God has revealed about himself.
Jeffrey Heine:They pray long and eloquent prayers, trying to somehow cajole the lord into doing whatever they want. And those are not prayers to the lord. They're ultimately just prayers to themselves. The followers of Jesus pray to the god who has revealed himself as father, son, and holy spirit. One god, three persons.
Jeffrey Heine:And if we pray, that means that prayers that are not to the triune, the trinity, God, as father, son, and spirit, as revealed by Jesus, then those are ultimately not prayers at all. They're just speeches to the wind. And 3rd and finally, we can pray wrongly when when we pray with a disobedient and rebellious heart against God. If we pray and at the same time we ignore the will of God and reject the grace of Jesus, our prayers are, again, worthless speeches to the wind. We cannot rightly respond to God in prayer while simultaneously rejecting his gospel and his commands.
Jeffrey Heine:Proverbs chapter 1, verse 28 says, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer them. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. The prophet Micah in chapter 3 verse 4 says, then they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them. He will hide his face from them at that time because they have made their deeds evil. We need to learn to pray because there are ways to pray wrongly.
Jeffrey Heine:There are prayers that are prayed with a self serving motive. There are prayers that deny God's revelation of who he is, and there are prayers that refuse God's commands and reject his grace. So if there are wrong ways to pray and we need to know about it, and we need to learn from Jesus how to pray rightly. And Jesus tells his listeners in the Sermon on the Mount, and again, in private with his disciples. When you pray, pray like this.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus gives a pattern of prayer. It's a pattern of prayer that Jesus will demonstrate what a heart looks like when it responds to God, not out of perfection, but out of genuine need, not out of performance, but out of divine relationship, and not out of piety, but out of holy surrender to God. The pattern that Jesus gives us emphasizes divine relationship to the point of calling Yahweh father, while at the same time emphasizing trust in the holiness and authority and sovereignty of God. It rests in the confession of need and a confidence in God's graciousness and a dependence upon his saving power. And the pattern that Jesus gives us is built upon this audacious trust that God listens to his children.
Jeffrey Heine:He is our father, And yes, our prayers are often weak and poor, but the power of prayer is not in the eloquence of our words or even the strength of our faith, but in the fact that because of Jesus, the father listens and responds to us. That is why we pray. We pray because he listens. And because he has committed himself to attend to the prayers of his children, we want to pray rightly and deeply and often with a fidelity to what he has revealed about himself and what he has accomplished in our redemption. And lastly, we want to pray in ever increasing harmony with the holy spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:Not only do we have a pattern of prayer that Jesus gave as instruction to his followers, we have been given the gift of the holy spirit to lead us in our prayers. We are not simply given a script or a formula and left on our own. We are given the person of the Holy Spirit to aid us in our prayers. We read in the apostle Paul's writing to the Roman church in Romans chapter 8 verse 26, that the spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul is acknowledging that there is a way to pray as we ought. And that way as we ought can feel so elusive to our flesh. But we are not left alone to figure out by ourselves, or even just as a community of believers, how to pray. God has acted to provide for us what we need to pray as we ought. And that act is relational through the presence and power of the person of the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:The spirit himself intercedes for us beyond words. Martin Luther said that the spirit so unites us to Jesus so that when we pray through the spirit in the name of Jesus, we pray out of the mouth of Jesus. Picture that, that you are so united with Jesus by the work of the holy spirit, that when you pray, and and this means that the height of of the good prayers to all the way into the gutter of the bad prayers where you don't know what to say, and you have the groaning in your heart, the spirit is so unified with you through and into Jesus, that you pray through the mouth of Jesus, who is praying for you now seated at the right hand of the father in heaven. We pray through the mouth of Jesus because of the work of the spirit. And we come to our father as his children.
Jeffrey Heine:This is good news for bad prayers. This is good news for people like me and maybe like you who feel bad at prayer, who are discouraged with our prayer lives, who want more, and who need to learn how to pray. The good news is that Jesus in his kindness teaches us how to pray, and the spirit helps us in our prayers, and the father has committed his attention to your prayers. That's why we pray. Yes, prayer is difficult, and yes.
Jeffrey Heine:We strive to pray rightly, but all the provisions that you need for a vibrant and flourishing prayer life has already been given to you by God himself, father, son, and spirit. So let's go to him now in prayer. Almighty God, we come in the name of Jesus through the power of the holy spirit to bring our words and our hearts before the father. Spirit, would you renew in us, stir in us a deep trust that you right now are giving your attention to your children? We don't have to cry out with loud noises.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't have to bring some guilt offering. We don't have to have the perfect eloquence of our words. We come to you as children to their father, and you give us your attention. Oh, spirit, would you help us to behold the grace of Jesus that motivates us eternally? Lord, help us to throw away the guilt that so easily tries to entangle us and keep us from prayer, but may we see your grace and run to the father who welcomes us as his children.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, would you use these coming weeks, these individuals who are working hard to prepare sermons, to preach faithfully your word, would you bless them as they prepare? Would you bless us as we seek to hear from you? And would you speak, Lord, for your servants are listening? We pray these things in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.
