Praying Like You Actually Believe God’s in Charge | Matthew 6:5–15

Show Notes

Episode 785:
In this episode, we explore Matthew 6:5-15, where Jesus teaches us about the nature of prayer. We discuss the importance of praying in private, away from the public eye, to foster a genuine connection with God. Jesus emphasizes that prayer should not be about showmanship or using elaborate language; rather, it should be a heartfelt conversation with our Heavenly Father.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Bible guys. And happy Friday. Here we are. I said happy Thursday before I know, but it's even happier because Fridays are always happy. Let's be honest, Fridays are sort of better. Always happy. Yes, tgif Friday, Friday, Friday, that's right. And today we are wrapping up this week about prayers of intercessory. They're actually in the middle of our sort of bigger series, which is Dangerous Prayers and prayers of intercession have just been the theme this week. So anyway, before we get to that, we have a segment that is actually it's actually called the Praise Report with a twist. Oh and it says this desirata, each of you will share something you're grateful for. This is a good one, but you must describe it like it's a dramatic movie trailer. Oh. So I went to chat GPT for mine. Yeah, and yeah, okay, good, do you want to go first? No? You should you go first? You go first? So I told chat GPT, Well, should I just read. It read what you told chat GPT, No, or should I just read the trailer? Read the trailer and then tell them what you told me? Okay, here we go. Ready, Yeah, you'll be able to figure out what I'm paying for really quick. Okay, here we go. In a world filled with uncertainty, chaos, and cheap, scratchy sandpaper disguise this toilet paper, one man dares to hope for more, and then it happens. You walk in and it's there, soft, strong quality, like wiping with the embrace of an angel. Because when a company cares enough to give you this kind of comfort in a public restroom, just imagine the kind of excellence they bring to everything else they do. Wow, this is gratitude. This is luxury, This is hope softness. Okay, so good, good, TP. That's what you're that's what you're in a public place, in a public place. That's okay, it's the little things, Chris, Yeah, it's just a little thing. Well, I mean that's what you're grateful for. You could no, no, no, that's a thing I'm grateful for. Okay, that's not the thing. Okay, it just said type in something you're gr grateful for. Okay, I chose something small. Yeah, so what did you type in and tell it that you wanted it to help you with? This is what I said, Write me a ninety Write me a ninety second dramatic trailer about something I'm grateful for. The thing I'm grateful for is when I walk into a public restroom and there's a soft, quality, expensive toilet paper, because there's nothing worse than cheap toilet paper that feels like sandpaper. Include the fact that providing this kind of care must mean that whatever product they are selling must also be great. You you worked hard on that one. I did, but I wanted to be specific. All right, Wow, now I feel kind of corny about mine. Not corny because there's a serious and lovey yes. Okay, thanks you for a wife. Yes I am, But that's not what I wrote. Okay, this says deep booming voice, slow build with swelling Strings's that's the if you have a soundtrack in your head. In a world where small town kids may not make it very far, one young man discovers that God's plan is bigger than his wildest dreams. Blessed with a family, entrusted with a ministry, and carried by a grace he never earned this fall. He realizes the truth. It was never about me, It was always about him. Okay, all right, so wow that's a that's an big encompassing thing. Yeah. I just wrote I'm grateful for God's provision for me and my family, and I'm grateful for his incredible blessings on the ministries he's given me. I'm just a small coound kid that can't figure out how I got here from there. Okay, right there you go? Yeah, all right, so yeah, yours was the opposite of mine. I went, fun, yeah, and you went but yeah, he is a big deal to Chris. If you don't know one of his top five most important things in life, well, I got to tell you there are times where my wife. Every once in a while, my wife will stray and she'll say, oh, just buy this, and I rebel. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's got to be. It's got to be Sharman altra. Yeah, that's it. Sharman ultra is the thing in my home. So Chris is, uh, you are very aware of comfort, very aware, very aware, very aware of comfort, temperature, humidity, the comfort of your seats, the tpe, the clothes you wear, scratchy, are you wet? Yes? Right, all those things so comfort is a very very high value thing. Yeah. You know what, I never I never really I thought I've really put in those terms before. But yeah, all of that is comfortable, all of it, even being wet. Yeah, yeah, it's it's just your thing. It's uh, Chad asmin our executive pastor and I'll we'll talk about that right that. Hey, we want to make sure this is comfortable for Chris. Yeah, for real, because this big deal for you. We want you to be comfortable and happy. So, like I just the fact that I don't think about that very much, The fact. That you even consider that is what a great jama's slippers, What a great thing that you even carelanket on your couch. I can't believe you think that you even care. We do. I care. We want you to be comfortable, man, Gray figure you know what, hey, this is what this is what good trainers do with race horses. Make sure they're comfortable. So when it's time they hit the track, they run hard and I figure, you got a good horse ride, so keep you comfortable on it. Yeah right, Yeah, all we have to do is make them comfortable it's really not that hard, that's right. Yeah, comfort is a thing. So good for you. Man, that was really a good one. I thought you you read it well, yeah, thank you you, thank you. Well, it was it was ridiculous. It was like, this is hope. Yes, this is hope. It's so fun. It doesn't take well, it's easy to lose hope when you're not come. Yeah. Sure, if that's a high value for you. Yeah. Well. And I've and I've always Chad's dreading what I'm He's he's hoping. I'm not going to say this, but I always poke fun of him at the deal that he made with Heritage toilet paper oh at Church. Yeah, because because it's a it's a deal. It's a company that says, hey, if you. Buy all of our products, yeah, yeah, you get a really good deal. You get a good discount. But it's not Shriman Ultra. It's it's a far cry. If you have sandpaper on one end and you have Sharman Alter on the other end, it's sort of like over fifty percent this way, it's past the fifty percent mark towards the sandpaper. Okay, well, and I'm just like, I'm like, so if we have any listeners left right right after riveting secon we're only six minutes and forty nine years. Yeah, after this riveting segment, maybe maybe what you need to do is pray about it. Oh, pray about the twelve favorite Yeah yeah, yeah, which funny enough. Jesus taught us to pray. You know that is funny. Yeah, But in the prayer he gave a terrible transition. In the prayer rile okayful, So here you go. In Matthew chapter six, verse five, it says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth. That is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, let me say again, but when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father in private. And then your father, who sees everything, will will reward you when you pray. Don't babbel and on as the gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don't be like them, for your father knows exactly what you need, even before you ask him, pray like this, our father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon, May or will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield the temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your father will not forgive your sins. Well there you go. Well, there it is. And so this is an intercessory prayer because really it is praying on behalf of others because the language is us, right, So it's not just me, it's us. It's almost as if your prayer. Give us today, forgive us our sins. Yeah, let us. Either this is a prayer praying for a family unit or a community or people, or a king, kingdom or a nation. Right, but either way, so it can be a personal prayer, but it's written as a collective prayer it is, isn't it. Yeah, it definitely falls into the intercestor category. So this happens in Matthew chapter six. So Matthew five, six, and seven are what we call the Sermon on the Mount, which we referenced earlier this week in one of the games we played, and in the Sermon on the Mount, this is where Jesus teaches us. This is the longest message he preaches in the Bible, and this is where he teaches us almost all the things that have made it into mainstream society that we know. Jesus said, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile. Judge, not that you be not judged. He taught us the golden rule, treat people the way you want to be treated. Truth is such, you're free. Right. There's so many things in here that we know that have kind of made it into pop culture. Jesus taught us these things here, and then he teaches us to pray. But it's interesting this prayer thing is in the middle of three big things that he's kind of referencing. Is my followers, do these things. He says, when you give in verse two to someone in need, don't do his hypocrits, do looking for attention. Then he says, when you pray, don't go out in public and always just be showing off with your big, fancy words. Instead, this is a private thing between you and God. And then in verse sixteen, he says when you fast. So there's this expectation Jesus has that his followers are going to be generous to others. They're going to pray to God, They're going to fast on behalf of their own situations and the needs of others. Right, those three things, they're kind of an expectation. He doesn't say if you pray, or if you give, or if you fast. He says, when you do these things. And so there's kind of this understanding that there are certain behaviors, certain disciplines that Christians would do, followers of God would be doing. And this is one of the expectations. Which is the series that we're in. Yes, old school now old schools and attitudes and disciplines and habits of Christians and what Christians do. So then prayer should be a habit is kind of where I was going with that, Right, this is one of the things that God's God's people should be doing. And so he's not saying don't ever pray out loud in front of other people. You know, when you read that beginning, he says, hey, go go by yourself, shut the door behind you, pray to your father in private. You're talking about the motivation. He's talking about motivation, right, because the Pharisees and some of the hypocrites they loved just getting everybody's prayer, the big prayers, use the big words, deep voice, public humility and all that kind of stuff, and then Jesus just saying that fake and. That's and by the way, that's the again, that's the reason why my mind goes toward not giving the Pharisees credit, because it's like they just they were just all about not necessarily the heart of what's honest and real, Like the prayer didn't matter as much as the glory. Right, So anyway, does that does that? It doesn't say Pharisees are just as hypocrites are wrecked. But I think another version says pharisees another translations, another gospel saystem yeah, look it up, because that'd be an interesting tidbit. But anyway, I love how he says, don't pontificate, yes, don't don't use big words and just ramble on, and then he says don't use the words again and again. In other words, what he's saying, is repetition ain't going to get you anywhere? Right right? So, and by the way, it's a little ironic because then he lays out the Lord's prayer that's commonly known as the Lord's Prayer that people in a lot of faiths they actually repeat over and over, like, hey, say ten our fathers, right, and so, which is repetition? And yet it comes just a few verses after him saying repetition is not going to get you anywhere. And then interesting, and by the way, you don't have to keep saying the same thing over and over and over, right, right, right, So please forgive me God, Please forgive me God. Please. Let's and by the. Way, that right, And that's not me putting down a certain faith in general. I have actually a lot of respect for the faith that I grew up in, which taught this right. You know, hey, say a bunch of you know our fathers. I grew up in that faith, and I have a lot of respect for it. So that's not me disrespecting it. But what I am saying is this, there is a pretty fundamental difference in belief and that's okay. And so I believe that this was not given to recite. Now, do I believe reciting this prayer is a bad thing. No, of course, not reciting it's a good thing. That's fine. But the idea of saying like, okay, the greater the sin, the more you have to repeat. Well, that's clearly what Jesus said doesn't get you anywhere, right, And so that it's not. And besides that, here's the other reason why we know that it wasn't given to us as a prayer to recite is because in another gospel, when he teaches us how to pray, he leaves a certain part out right, So it's like, so it's like, so he taught us to pray differently. So it's almost as if, you know, you go to the other gospel and you say, Jesus, don't you know the Lord's prayer? Right? And Jesus like, that's because it's not something to recite. It's a it's a it's a pattern, isn't it. It's a model. It is Jesus is saying, hey, here's the building blocks of a great prayer. Yeah. Right, So anyway, was it the Pharisees and the other gospels? No, it was not. Okay, so I just think in translation, and so I attached it. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, So so maybe it was the maybe it was the maybe I'm thinking of the Pharisee staying on the corner, putting ashes on the wall. He calls them hypocrites. Remember fast Yeah, remember. I think I think it's the Pharisees putting ashes on their heads. Yeah, it's fasting. So this idea, Jesus does teach us to be persistent in prayer. So he's not saying it's wrong to come back to God with the same prayer request you had last time. Correct, that's not wrong. So he teaches us to be persistent. He talks about the woman who keeps coming back to the judge. He talks about right, continuing to knock on the door, continue to ask, continue to see right. So he's not saying that persistence is wrong. He's saying that that going through the motions over and over and over again is wrong. Like, so I was with somebody from another faith who also is famous for praying, and we were getting ready to go do a thing, but it was time for prayers, and so I said, oh, okay, hey, you know what, I'll wait. Oh no, I get this done real quick. I know this prayer come back over right, So I just remember. So then I asked him about it, So, oh, I say that prayer every time I'm in a hurry, I just hurry up and do that one. I said, well, it feels a little perfunctory as well. We're commanded to we have to pray five times a day, we have to do this. And so then it turned into a conversation about prayer, and I said, you know, Jesus said, don't just keep saying the same words over and over and over again, repetitively. What God's looking for is a relational experience right where we're speaking from our hearts, your heart, right, he wants our hearts. And in another translation, it says, when you pray, don't Babylon and on as the Pagans do. It's what the King James says. Right here, he says, as the gentiles do, because they think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. An incantation, a spell, right, some kind of that. That's how a lot of people feel. It. If I just chant this thing, oh, then I'm going to be able to get God's attention. And what Jesus is saying, listen, it's not spells, it's not incantations, it's not chanting. It's going to get my attention. It's a personal conversation between a child and his father. That that's what gets my attention. And then he goes, hey, here's a good framework if you're going to talk to your dad about these things. First of all, acknowledge who he is, right, our father, who art in heaven. That's so we're acknowledging who he is. Hollowed be your name or in this one, may your name be kept holy. That's the meaning of it. What we're doing now is we're celebrating him for who he is. That's that's really what you're doing there. You're the creator, you're the provider. You're the one that can you know, is not bound by this earth or no problem is too big for you. That's what we're doing. We're having a conversation. It's not specifically those words, it's that attitude. And then when he says, may your kingdom come soon, he's he and may year will be done as it is on earth as it is in heaven. Is saying now, and you're in charge, So I recognize who you are. I recognize that there's nothing you can't do, and so I want you to do what you decide is best. Right, that's really what you're saying there. Yeah. So the building so that you're just boring me, Yeah, sorry about that, bully, Chris is bored by prayer. So the uh, the building blocks that I was referring to earlier is our number one is declared God's greatness. Yes, and then then the second. One is acknowledge our dependence, right, our dependence for what, our dependence for his is? Uh, you know, give us today this is yeah, the food, forgive us our sins. Forgive us of our sins. And so there's there's there's a list of things that were dependent on him. But but declare God's greatness is the first building block, which I love. I love that most of us learned it. Hallowed be thy name, right, Yeah, and it says here, may your name be kept holy. But another translation for hallowed be thy name, actually a better translation is great is your name hallowed? How it means great, great is your name? And that's what it is. It's declaring God's greatness. It's recognizing just to it is your praying too, in the moment. I push on that just a little bit. Holy is what hallowed means, Hallowed means set aside. Yeah, so a better translation is holy is holy. But because your name is set aside, it's greater than every name. It's it's beyond right, So it's not wrong. It's just you know, to say, great is your name, but his name is only great because it's so far beyond all the rest of ours. That that's that's the idea You're saying. Greatness would be a byproduct of the real translation, which would be holyness accurately like holy. Yeah, yeah, so holy is your. Right, right, But we we think of holy raw, right, We tend to think of holy as like without sin. Of course, that's a word. That's a meaning of it. Yeah, But holy means set apart that that that's really what it means at its foundation is it's it's been set apart for God, only for God's use, only for God's benefit. Which was that could be the idea of great Yes, and that's it is. Your name is so far set apart from ours, it's almost incomprehensible how great you and your name are compared to interesting little people. Interesting? Yeah, yeah, so it's it's both. It's like flip sides of the same coin, right, Yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah. And then and then uh, and then he goes on and he asks for dependence on all these different things. And I think that in the end, I think God wants us to uh, you know, concentrate on ourselves because he removes everybody else out of the equation. He says, he says, get get yourself into a private place to pray. Right. So now again, like you said, praying in public is not wrong, right, but he's talking about your motivation for prayer. And he says, say, when you pray, go to away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father in private. Then your father, who sees everything, will reward you. And what he's really saying is is he's saying, like, don't do it in public for the wrong motivation. If you do it in private, your father is the only one that needs to hear you, right, other people don't need to hear you. It's fine if they do. And on occasion, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying, your motivation for your reward for your prayer only needs to be your father. Yes, right, yeah, Well there's an intimacy in this. Jesus prayed public correct manytimes all the time. Oh Father, you know, help me do this so that people would see how great you are. He many times Jesus prays publicly. But there's a public conversation I have with my friends and in the thousands of people who attend Heritage Church and all the people who listen online. And then there's also the intimate family conversations that only me and my wife and my kids are having, right, And what Jesus is inviting you to is if you only participate in public prayer, right, One, don't be prideful like the Pharisees or the hypocrites are here, that's one. Don't just do it for your own attention spiritually and going through the religious ritual of saying your incantation and your chanting. But do you know what I think what he's trying to do is he's trying to say, don't you know there's an intimate conversation you can have with God that's private, that's not for everybody else. Right, Thanking God for the food at the dinner table is very different than the kind of conversation that you can have with God privately. And that's what he's inviting us too, is this intimacy with God that you can't have in public. Yeah. Have you ever met anybody with a prayer closet? Yeah? Yeah, lots of people. Yeah, where they actually have a dedicated closet or space where it's just a prayer thing. Yeah. I have a good buddy of mine, my pastor growing up, had one have a good. Buddy of mine who bought a building in the county somewhere to run a business. And he's a mechanic, so you know, he's always like greased up and you know, they always covered in grease and oil. And he has it upstairs that is will never be finished because of something with the city blah blah blah. So he has this upstairs that could be remodeled and be this whole second floor where you could put a business. I mean, it is a monstrosity of a place, but he can't do it. So it's like this wasted space. And that's a big, long story. So he has this big, huge staircase and he has what he has now named the upper room, and and he says, what do I do with this and he says, I know it. Actually it was his wife who said, I'll create a prayer prayer space, and so and so it's you know, it's it's this the one little area that is near a bay window near the front of the place, and she's just decked out this wooden, unfinished area and she's made this little haven and they call it the Upper Room. So that so from time to time he'll he'll be having a bad day at work and he's like, I'll be back right and he just walks up the stairs and they're like there he. Goes, go to the upper room, go in the upper room, and then amazing. Yeah, but it's a dedicated space and if you think about it, it's very much like this concept. Right. It's it's a prayer closet, so to speak. It's a very big one. But he's, uh, he's like, I want to be in private and I want to go to my heavenly Father. And in this case, he's able to do it in the middle of his day where he can come back down and say, okay, let's go. Yeah, good to go. But it's great. So so then we ask God to provide what we need for today. We don't worry about tomorrow. Just Lord provide for us. Today, we confess our sin, which I think is important. It's interesting most of us start off with our sin. God, I'm sorry for my sin. I'm sorry. I don't deserve to be talking to you. Which forgive my sining? Right, that's requests yeah, yeah, or we ignore our sin and just go straight to hey, this is what I need. So we got to start off with who God is and the fact that God's in control and it's his will. But then we do get to these other things. Here's what I need. Would you forgive my sins? And then he says, forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And so you know, there's a passages in the Bible says we love because He first loved us. Paul challenges us with the idea that we should forgive because we've been forgiven. Same idea, and Jesus actually says those words, if you forgive those who if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your father will not forgive your sins. That's a really strong statement, right, but we talked about forgiveness yesterday, didn't We were talking about that. That Alls, I'm I'm not saying what you did is okay. Alls. I'm saying is I'm giving God the responsibility of bringing justice, not me. Right, I'm giving up my right to prosecute. I was just going to make note of this note in the in my Bible it says this prayer begins with God's interests not ours, God's name not ours, God's kingdom not ours, and God's will not ours. Yeah, we should not ask anything. Yeah, it's just interesting. Yeah, that's really well. Hey, that looks like our time, and thanks for joining us this week. Hopefully it's been a great theme and a great thing to ponder on. But hopefully we'll pick up next time with a different theme under the umbrella of dangerous and we'll see you then. Mhm.