When you Pray

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This morning we’re starting a new series on the Lord’s Prayer. My title is ‘When You Pray’. That’s a reference to what Jesus says in introducing the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of Luke 11.

My prayer for this series is that we will learn to pray better by getting to know God better. I wonder how you would rate your own prayer life. If you were giving yourself a rating out of ten, what would it be? A zero rating would mean 'I never pray, so I don't even register on the scale'. A score of ten would mean 'I know everything there is to know about prayer and put it into practice'. A score somewhere on the scale from 1 to 9 would be a measure of your satisfaction or dissatisfaction with how you pray. How good is your praying? How would you rate yourself?

Almost certainly most of us here will be somewhere from 1 to 9. We pray, but we know that we've got more to learn. Maybe you reckon that your rating is definitely down at the low end of the scale. Facing up to the reality of our prayer lives can be rather depressing.

If you're fairly new to being a Christian, perhaps you've been in meetings where prayers seem to have gushed out of people and you've sat there feeling as if you have nothing to say and what's more you don't know how to say it.

Perhaps you've been a Christian for a long time, and that feeling of being all at sea in prayer meetings is just a rather painful memory, but nonetheless you think about your private prayer life – the praying that you do out of earshot of everyone else - and you feel as if you've made so very little progress over the years. You've been practising prayer for years but there's no way you feel ready to take the 'L' plates off yet.

If you would give yourself a depressingly low score, let me say this: that's the best place to be. It seems to me that we need to be massively dissatisfied with how we pray. If we’re not – if we're content with how things are - then we won't make any progress at all. If we're dissatisfied, then we'll keep learning. The place to learn from is the Bible, and not least from the accounts of the Lord’s Prayer in the gospels. What we have here is teaching from Jesus about prayer. So my first heading is this:

First, WHEN YOU PRAY, LEARN FROM JESUS

Here’s how Luke 11 begins. Take a look at this – p 1042:

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him,

“Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say…”

And then comes the Lord’s Prayer. So Jesus is teaching his disciples, and if you’re a disciple of Jesus, then this teaching on prayer is addressed to you. A disciple is one who listens to Jesus, believes what he says, and obeys it. In other words, this teaching is for anyone who is willing to be taught by Jesus. If that is not you, and you know that you’re not yet a disciple, then by definition you’re not yet ready to take on board what Jesus had to say. But you may well be interested in an inside view of what following Jesus is like. If so, then this is a good opportunity for just such a view.

Now, the issue here is not that we should pray. It’s assumed by Jesus that we will pray, if we’re his disciples. And so we will, in some way or other.

But if you do feel dissatisfied with your own praying, you can see that you're in good company, because clearly that's how the disciples of Jesus felt. They'd obviously heard about other people learning to pray – in this case the disciples of John the Baptist. And no doubt it's good for us to be spurred on in our own praying by the example of others, but that can only help us so far, because a lot of praying is done in secret and we don't really get to see what goes on in other people's hearts.

But the disciples of Jesus had been motivated to learn in another way too: they could see the prayer-life of Jesus. Most of that was hidden from them too, as it is from us. We know very little in the way of detail about Jesus' regular praying. The description of Jesus praying here is typically terse. But the disciples saw enough to know that what Jesus had, they wanted some of. And one day, as Jesus finished praying, they plucked up their courage and asked to be enrolled in Jesus's school of prayer. 'Lord, teach us to pray…' And how does Jesus respond? He begins their first seminar there and then: 'When you pray, say…' Now there are some very basic and important things to notice here.

First, they knew that Jesus was the one who could teach them. They went to him. Those disciples often made mistakes, but this wasn't one of them. They went to the right place to learn to pray. They went to Jesus. We should do the same. In our multi-faith world which is in some ways so like the religious supermarket of the Roman Empire in the first century, there are so many voices wanting to guide us on to their spiritual path. But only Jesus can teach true prayer. Go to him.

Second, they were already following Jesus. 'Lord,' they called him. And that's what he was to them. At his command, they had left everything to follow him. We won't learn to pray from Jesus if we imagine that we can pump him for the secrets of effective prayer so that we can get we want and then go and live our lives independently of him. When we’ve bowed the knee to Jesus as the Saviour and Lord of our lives once for all, then our request to learn to pray has integrity.

Third, they asked him to teach them. They didn't simply despair that they couldn't pray like him. They didn't just get depressed about their prayer lives. They took the simplest and most effective action open to them. They just went to Jesus and said, 'Lord, teach us…' Do you want to pray better? Ask Jesus to teach you. Let the disciples request become your prayer: 'Lord, teach me to pray.'

Fourth, Jesus agreed to teach them. He doesn't say that, of course; but it's implicit in what he does, because he simply gets on with teaching them. In fact if ever there is a prayer that Jesus will answer with a resounding 'Yes', this is it: 'Teach us to pray'. Jesus is not going to say to you, 'Well, no. I'm too busy. I'm not interested in teaching you. Go away. Don't bother me.' If you're prepared to learn from him, he's ready to teach.

Fifth, prayer takes time. It is a distinct activity. A time of prayer has a beginning, a middle and an end. There’s a school of thought that says that all of life should be prayer, but that’s very misleading. Certainly all of life should be lived in relation to God. But Jesus prayed, and then he finished praying. And he said, 'when you pray…' Prayer has to be given time.

Sixth, prayer is talking to God. It’s not silent meditation. It’s not humming with your legs crossed. It’s not communing with nature. It’s not even Bible study. Nor is it being aware of God's presence, or his power, or his anger, or his love. Keep your definition of prayer simple, and you'll avoid confusion. Prayer is talking to God. True, the talking doesn't have to be out loud. But it is talking nonetheless.

Seventh, prayer can be learned. There is a very great deal about prayer that comes naturally to those who are children of God through faith in Christ. Children learn to speak unconsciously by being around their parents and hearing them and others speak. But we all know that there's also a lot we need to learn by direct teaching, whether it's 'Don't speak to your mother like that,' or 'Speak up so I can hear you.' Prayer, too, needs to be learned. Who from? From Jesus, and from his Word, the Bible. If you want a practical training course in prayer, here's the workbook. And Jesus is the tutor. Learn to pray from him.

That’s what we’re going to be doing as we work our way through the Lord’s Prayer. For now, we can learn more from Jesus by looking at how he introduces the Lord’s Prayer in the account in Matthew’s Gospel. I’d like you to look at that. So turn back to Matthew 6.5-9, on p 970. We’ll be looking further at this passage as this series unfolds, and not least when we think about ‘how to pray’ in a few weeks time. But this morning I want to make two further points by way of introduction. So:

Secondly, WHEN YOU PRAY, DON’T LEARN FROM THE HYPOCRITES

Look at Matthew 6.5:

And 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.

Jesus contrasts the kind of prayer that God wants with the prayer of the hypocrites, who

“love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men”.

For 'synagogue' nowadays read 'church'. For 'street corner' read pretty well anywhere where people gather. The kind of prayer that Jesus is describing here is hypocritical for this reason: it looks and sounds as if it’s directed towards God, but in fact the person praying wants to be heard by other people. Whether God hears and answers is very much a secondary issue.

This doesn’t mean that it is wrong to pray in front of other people. But it does mean this: if your public praying is aimed at preserving or enhancing your status and spiritual standing among your fellow Christians, then don’t expect God to answer. You’ll get your answer from those to whom your prayer was directed. They’ll think you’re wonderful. Make the most of it. Because your prayer will bring no other benefit to you.

Spiritual phrases may trip off the tongue. Our posture may look deeply devout as we make clear to others that we’re lost in prayer. But if what we’re most concerned with is what other people think, then our prayer is in fact a sham. Remember, it’s not the public context which is the issue here. It’s the private motivation. If our motive is to be seen by men, we cannot expect to be heard by God.

When we pray, we must learn from Jesus – and not from the hypocrites. Then Jesus contrasts the kind of prayer that God wants with the prayer of another group as well. So:

Thirdly, WHEN YOU PRAY, DON’T LEARN FROM THE PAGANS

Pagan prayer is no better than hypocritical prayer, but for a different reason. 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. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Pagan prayer is fruitless, because according to Jesus it is babble. It is not real speech: it is not an attempt to use language to communicate something meaningful to another person. Instead, it’s impersonal. It sees God not as personal but as some kind of alien force or power, which needs to be appeased in some way. It’s magic: an attempt to make something happen by the recitation of the right words the right number of times. It’s not talking to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we may think to ourselves that we don't pray like that. But what are essentially pagan attitudes can so easily creep in to our thinking. It’s not because of our many words, as Jesus puts it, that God hears our prayer. Neither the quantity of our words nor the length of our praying impresses God. We can’t brow beat him into submitting to our will and making things turn out the way we want by simply piling up the prayer hours. Going on and on at a parent repeating a request like some kind of mantra is not the way to communicate effectively.

I have a number of books about prayer on my shelves which at one time in my life I found deeply impressive and challenging. They seemed to me to open up vistas of prayer that I’d never known before. They promised mind blowing prayer experiences, and they demanded so much self discipline that I thought at first that they must be deeply spiritual. Some of them built up layer upon layer of careful, detailed procedure that you have to go through if you are going to get your prayer right.

It seemed to me that I was a complete beginner at prayer, and that these authors had developed it to a very high stage. Now and then I would think that I had at last taken a quantum leap in prayer experience. But the effort required to maintain these elaborate systems was always beyond me, and I would quickly give up.

Then I began to realise that I’d been seduced by these approaches to prayer. They may have been given some kind of Christian framework, but they were missing the point of Christian prayer altogether. They were essentially pagan in their approach. They saw prayer as a matter of technique, or as a craft, or as a discipline like practising your scales if you’re a musician.

But according to Jesus, all such approaches to prayer amount to babble. It may be beautiful babble. It may be babble requiring the most extraordinary levels of asceticism and self-discipline. But it’s babble.

God is not a force. He is not "it". He is not some divine musical instrument to be played on with varying degrees of skill in the hope that we will in the end hear from it what we want. He is not impersonal. He is our Father. In this one short passage on prayer, verses 6-15, Jesus speaks of God as Father six times over. That is the key. The secret of prayer is simply this: there is no secret. Prayer is talking to God, as beloved adopted child to their heavenly Father. It is personal communication.

It seems that there’s something in many of us that’s always wanting to make it more complicated than it is, rather in the same way that we find it hard to accept that we can do nothing to be reconciled with God. Forgiveness, eternal life, and adoption into God's family are God's gift that we cannot earn in any way. There is of course much that we don’t understand about that; but it’s basically simple: we just accept what God gives.

It’s the same with prayer. There’s much that we don’t understand, just as no doubt there are endless doctoral theses written on communication between young children and their parents. But it’s not difficult to the child. What we need to learn, and what we find so difficult to learn, is that prayer is simple. Prayer is talking to our Father in heaven. It is asking him for things.

We do it because we want to, we need to, and he has asked us to. He’s promised to be there always, to listen, to answer, and to give us what we ask for - but with the same kind of provisos that apply with an earthly father. He may know better than we do ourselves what we really need. So the answer to a request may come back rather different to what we anticipated or hoped. He may say yes, or no, or wait, or yes but with changes.

Whatever the answer, it will be loving and wise and the best for us. From his heavenly vantage point our Father sees many things that we don’t. He knows better than us. But never forget that prayer is simple. It’s not babble. It is children talking to their Father, and asking him for things that they want and need.

Conclusion

Children ask for many things. I remember about a decade ago now when our daughter Katy asked for a hamster. We were in a superstore looking for something else, without a thought of hamsters on our minds. But there they were. Katy already had quite a collection of animals at home, but all those animals were made of cloth and cotton wool and fake fur. They weren’t flesh and blood. Katy was pretty impressed by these hamsters, but when the assistant opened the cage and dropped that writhing bundle of real fur into her hands, she was smitten.

She decided she wanted a hamster. Badly. I knew, because she told me. In fact I knew before she uttered a word, because I know her very well, and I could see it in her pleading eyes. But she left Vivienne and me in no doubt. She absolutely had to have a hamster. Having seen it, she really couldn't think of anything else or talk of anything else between then and bedtime.

I didn’t immediately grant her request. Why? Because I could see that she wasn’t fully aware of all the consequences of what she was asking. Hamsters need cages, space, equipment, food, mucking out, taking for walks. And so on. I promised an answer would come in due course.

Katy couldn’t understand why she had to wait. And she certainly couldn’t understand why I should be in any doubt that she would fulfil her promise to do all the cleaning and caring for this animal, in conjunction with her sister, with no complaint and in perpetuity. Of course she would! After all, hamsters are so cute!

Well, I thought it all through. I assessed what was best for her and for the rest of family. I tried to figure out what would be the right and loving answer. In the end, on this occasion, I said yes. And Humphrey the Hamster lived a long and happy hamster life, was much appreciated and loved, and is now buried at the end of our garden.

Prayer is talking to our Father in heaven.

Ronald Dunn, in his helpful book "Don't Just Stand There… Pray Something" tells how a missionary received a letter from a little girl in a Sunday School class. The whole class had been writing, and their teacher must have told them that real live missionaries were very busy and might not have time to answer their letters. This missionary's letter simply read:

Dear Rev. Smith,
We are praying for you. We are not expecting an answer.

Too many of us pray like that. Let’s learn, not from the hypocrites or the pagans, but from Jesus. Let's get back to the basics, back to the simplicity of prayer, back to talking to God our Father, laying our requests before him, and expecting answers.

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