“A Christian’s Prayer” – Matthew 6:9-13

Do you remember your first vehicle? Somebody tell me what it was. Mine was a ’75 Dodge Stepside pickup. This was about 1985 or 86. I was 16 years old and I loved that truck. I washed and waxed on that thing like crazy. It had a Slant 6 engine and I could actually stand in the engine compartment and work on it. The engine was almost clean enough to eat on.

But one night, some friends and I decided to take that little pickup down to the Lake Worth dam and do some mudding. My truck wasn’t four-wheel drive and the tires were street tires but, who cares? I mean, what could possibly go wrong? We took off and splashed around and slid around and that truck did great. We were having so much fun but you know this story isn’t going to end well. Pretty much none of my sixteen-year-old me stories end well.

We came around a corner and there was another mudhole and it looked like all the others. It couldn’t be too deep. So I charged ahead and got about half way through and the front end fell off a ledge under the water and I was stuck. I knew I was in trouble when muddy water started coming in the doors and the front of the hood was under water.

So, we got out and started walking until we found a house. It was well after dark but I knew I had to call my dad and since this was way before cell phones, I knocked on the door and a man came to the door. He was very nice and very understanding. He said it happened all the time and he even knew which hole I was in but he didn’t have anything that would pull me out. So, he invited me in and showed me to the phone.

I called Pop and we excused ourselves to leave when the man stopped me and said, “I have seen a lot of young guys get stuck in that mud hole and they always come to use my phone but this is the first time anybody has ever called their father to come get them!”

But I never thought to call anybody else. Oh, I knew I would be in some well-deserved trouble but I also knew my dad would know what to do and would get my truck out of the mud. I knew my dad was the one to call when I was in trouble.

How about you? Who do you call when you are in trouble? Or maybe you don’t call anybody. You just always try to fix it yourself. Or maybe you try to forget you are even in trouble. Maybe you distract yourself with work or hobbies or even drugs or alcohol. How’s that working out for you? Is that getting you out of trouble?

I think we all know in our minds that when we are in trouble, we should take our requests to God in prayer. We know we should but…we don’t. We know that our heavenly Father is the one to call on and we know He has the wisdom and power to help us but for some reason we hesitate to do it. We know those requests should be made with confidence because He tells us to come boldly into His throne room in Hebrews 4:16.

We know we should and yet we don’t for any number of reasons but let me suggest to you this morning that one reason we hesitate to pray is because we don’t really know how. Oh, sure, we have some knowledge of prayer and I’m not saying we are doing it wrong, necessarily, but maybe we aren’t really doing it right.

I think we will find as we study prayer more deeply that God’s ultimate purpose for prayer is not so you have a number to call when you need something but the ultimate purpose of prayer is for God’s glory and when everything you say in your prayers is backed up with that mindset, the more powerful your prayer life will be.

Have you ever been in a so-called conversation with somebody and you realize that they are only partly paying attention?  Does it seem like they are really only participating when they are talking?  What’s worse is when that person only wants to talk about themselves and when you try to steer the conversation elsewhere they always bring it back to them.  Well, I have heard enough people pray in my life to know that must be how God feels sometime.

So, do you ever feel like your prayer life is weak and ineffective?  If it feels that way, then it is weak and ineffective and it is weak and ineffective because your walk with God is weak and ineffective.  Your conversation with Him can only be as powerful or as weak as your relationship with Him and your relationship grows stronger as you learn to trust Him and obey Him.

Do you remember that old hymn, “Trust and Obey”?  It says in one of the verses:

Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at His feet
Or we'll walk by His side in the way
What He says we will do
Where He sends we will go
Never fear, only trust and obey

Oh, that’s good stuff!  Do you want that fellowship with Him?  Do you want your prayers to be powerful and effective?  James 5:16 says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”  Well, to be righteous means to be right with God.  So, you can either be perfect or be forgiven and obedient.  I’ll have to be the latter.  But because I am right with God through His Son Jesus and I have been forgiven and when I am trusting and obeying Him, I can expect my prayer life to be powerful and effective.

But there is a good way to pray and there is a better way to pray.  Did you know that? The good way to pray is, “Aaaahhh!!! Lord, please help me!”  Sometimes that’s all we have time for or all we are able to do and that works.  God hears that prayer.  But there is a better way to pray and Jesus told us as He told His disciples who asked Him about it in Matthew chapter 6:9-13.  The Lord’s Prayer is found there and is a skeleton upon which we will fill in and flesh out what our fervent prayers should look like.

The Lord’s Prayer was never intended to be repeated as a prayer itself.  The disciples didn’t ask Jesus to teach them a prayer but to teach them how to pray and so Jesus gave them this outline. So, first turn to Matthew 6:9-13 and then we will look at Psalm 100 in a few minutes.

“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 And 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.^”

I want you to use your imagination with me for just a minute and imagine that you are a private in the Army and your sergeant is showing you the new weapons system that has been developed.  It is fairly easy to use but there is a method to it and if used correctly, it will absolutely change the way wars are fought.

You saw this before (plastic gun) when we were in Boot Camp last year. Its name is the Patriots Right and Your Every Responsibility weapons system, more commonly known as P.R.A.Y.E.R. and all you have to do is cock it, take the safety off and fire and it will completely wipe out the enemy.  But because you weren’t really paying attention when the sergeant was demonstrating it, you get into battle and don’t use it correctly.  You pull the trigger but nothing happens and so you finally use it to poke the enemy in the eye or use it as a club but it doesn’t really seem very effective and you finally just give up on it.

That’s just how real prayer is.  There is a method to it and when used correctly, it is the single most powerful weapon on the planet because it is the power of Almighty God, the power of the Creator of the universe and the risen Savior of the world.  Here in Matthew, Jesus gives us the outline for using prayer and it can be broken down into four steps.  The first two verses are praise.  Verse 11 is asking for provision, verse 12 is asking for forgiveness or pardon and verse 13 is asking for protection.

Today, we are going to look at just the first step to real and powerful prayer.  If you want your prayer to be heard and for it to be effective, Jesus says to start out with praise to God.  That’s what Jesus was doing when He said, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” He is acknowledging that our Father is God and makes His home in Heaven because He is the Creator. He is our Father, which means He is our Supplier, Redeemer and Sustainer.

“Hallowed” is another word for holy and it means set apart and so we only use His name when we are talking to Him or about Him. I just need to say again that ANY use of ANY name or title of God outside of that is to use His name in vain. When we say “OMG” or any other name or title of God or Jesus, whether it is a word used in surprise or anger or shock, it is a sin. It is supremely disrespectful of Almighty God and will be punished as such. I know you don’t mean anything by it. That’s the point! It is not to be used for nothing. There is power in those names and they are to be used reverently and in praise.

So, what does true praise sound like or look like?  Well, I invite you to turn way left in your Bibles to the middle of the book; to the book of Psalms, specifically Psalm 100.

Do you appreciate what God does for you?  Do you enjoy being with Him and witnessing His glory and power?  Then just tell Him.  Expressing our love for God in praise doesn’t just tell God, it actually completes the enjoyment and appreciation.  Expressing praise is part of the enjoyment.  If you went to a football game and only clapped quietly when your team scored, that wouldn’t be much fun, would it? If all you did was say, “Amen, brother” quietly at a first down, that game wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable.  We don’t know who wrote Psalm 100 but he obviously can’t contain his praise.  Just look at the very first word.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
²     Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
³ Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.
⁵ For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

I want us all to read it again out loud. I don’t care what translation you have and I hope you see that the psalmist is praising God just because of Who God is and what He has done and not because of who the psalmist is or what the psalmist has done. Read it like you mean it.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
²     Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
³ Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.
⁵ For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Do you see how he praises God just for who God is and what He has done?  This first part is not about you.  If you have a hard time thanking God for who He is, then you don’t know who He is.  In whatever circumstance you are in, you should SHOUT your praise to God for His goodness, mercy, grace, love and forgiveness.  Without all of that, whatever you are going through would be immeasurably worse.  You shout for a football game that means absolutely nothing.  You should want to shout for all that God has done, is doing and will do in your life.

Now, I know that this psalm is not a prayer.  It’s actually a song but it involves the kind of praise that we should incorporate into our prayers.  Look at verse 2.  Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Now, obviously, this is talking about praising God when you are in a good mood, right?  When all is well, worship with gladness.  Praise God with joyful songs when you are happy.  Right?

Actually, this makes no such qualifications.  Every time we seriously pray, we should realize who God is and who we are and that should bring us joy to the point where we can pray with gladness and joy because we are talking to the Creator of the universe and Almighty God.  When we do that, we will start to see power in our prayer life just like Paul and Silas did in Acts 16.  In Acts 16, it tells of Paul and Silas being thrown into jail for something they had not done.  Not only were they thrown in jail, but they were whipped and put into stocks that would keep them from moving or finding any comfort.

How would you feel about that if it were you?  I have to admit, I’m afraid I would be seething mad.  I didn’t do anything wrong.  I’m in pain.  My rights have been taken away.  Most people would be miserable and mad.  But in beautiful verse 25, it says that Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening to them.

I don’t know what they were praying or singing but there is power in that kind of joyful, praising, worshipful prayer.  In the next verse it says that there was suddenly a violent earthquake and the foundations of the prison were shaken and the doors flew open and the chains were loosed.  Talk about “Chainbreaker”!  Tell me there’s not power in prayer.  Tell me again how you have it so bad you can’t pray.

Paul later went on to say, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹²I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:11

You ought to SHOUT that to God in prayer! “Thank you, Lord, for what you are doing in my life and while I may not be comfortable, I know that because of my relationship with you that I can do all things through You who gives me strength!” And maybe that means that God will remove you or release you from your trouble like He did with Paul and Silas that time or…maybe He just gives you the grace and strength to get through it, praising Him because you know that the other prisoners are listening to you.

Because they are listening.  Other people hear your prayers and they want to know what kind of God you worship.  Do you worship a God that you only pray to asking for help and protection as you cry out in pain or do you, in the midst of pain, shout to God your praise just because of who He is and what He has done in spite of who you are and in spite of what you have done?  That’s a powerful way to start your prayer right there.

We all remember the story of Daniel in the lions’ den but do you remember what got him there?  He was caught praying and giving thanks to God.  What did Daniel have to praise God for?  He was in captivity in a foreign country, his country had been conquered with its capital city of Jerusalem in ruins and yet Daniel risked everything to praise God.  He must have been convinced of the power of prayer and especially the power of praise in prayer.

Or how about good old Job?  One day Job was the richest man in the world, blessed by God with everything he could want including seven sons and three daughters and the next day he lost everything including all his children and what did Job do?  It says as soon as Job got the word, he got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” (Job 1:20-21) Evidently Job, too, knew about the power of praise in prayer.

We know that the night before Jesus was arrested, He ate the Passover meal with His disciples, including Judas, and it says that as He took the bread, He gave thanks and as He took the wine, He gave thanks. (Luke 22) Jesus is eating what He knows will be His last meal with the very person who has betrayed Him sitting there with Him and yet Jesus gives thanks.  There must be power in praise. Why else would Jesus tell His disciples to pray starting with praise?

Let’s spend some time right now just praising God for who He is and what He has done.  Remember, this is not about you.  Praise God for His grace and mercy.  Praise Him for His love and forgiveness.  Praise Him just for being who He is and even though you don’t understand Him, you will trust Him and obey Him because He is God.  Do that right now, as the music plays.

If you don’t have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus then all you have to do is believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven and by His sacrifice on the cross, all your sins can and will be forgiven if you just ask.  Repent – turn away – from those sins and ask God to be Lord of every aspect of your life and open up the power of prayer in your life today.  Do it now.  Today is the day of salvation!  Thank you, Lord!