Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 4, 2020 | UNCOMFORTABLE - Prayer

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October 4, 2020 | UNCOMFORTABLE - Prayer · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: How you doing?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna miss that music.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: It wakes me up.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is the last Sunday for Wow.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, for that music.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I need a clicker up here.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I need something so I can control the screen.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody bringing that to me.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you don't do that, could you just rewind that to the beginning and then I can tell you when to move it forward every time?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So how's everybody doing?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: You want to talk about the debate?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't either.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was pretty painful, wasn't it?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're moving backwards.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning, so we've talked about uncomfortable discipleship, uncomfortable evangelism.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we're going to talk about uh uncomfortable prayer.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Last week Connor, I watched it online, and he thanks, Sam.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um Connor started off by saying that other than I think he said tithing, which are great words to come from a guy who's been into Southern Baptist seminary.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: That fits.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: But um other than tithing, you know, evangelism is, you know, a word that we hear and makes me makes us feel guilty, it makes us feel uncomfortable.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think that prayer is right up there with evangelism.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: When we hear the word prayer, we feel uncomfortable.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I decided to start off with uh just being honest with you that there are some things that are a lot of things I think that happen in church that make us feel uncomfortable.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Out here in the lobby, here in the auditorium, in our small groups, in classes, things happen that make us feel, you know, uncomfortable.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I can think of ten things right off the bat in case you can't.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know when you visit a church for the first time and you're asked to stand up and introduce yourself?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Has that ever happened to you?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the last time you ever visit a church on vacation, I'll promise you.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That makes us uncomfortable.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or uh here's a second one.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: When the song leader urges everyone to sing louder, but he's looking right at you, that makes me feel uncomfortable.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or when you're told to stand up, this doesn't happen during COVID, it's one of the blessings of COVID, when you're told to stand up and greet the stranger next to you and make small talk.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, when someone gives their testimony and goes into intimate detail, I almost said when the pastor does that, like when he tells you his sex life with his wife is great, and you just say, I don't want to hear it, okay.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I even say that?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh fifth, when someone's cell phone goes off during the service and and they're a little bit older, and so they're the last person in the room to even hear it, and then somebody nudges them, and then they take forever to find it in their purse or whatever and fumble, turning it off.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: That makes me feel uncomfortable.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or how about when there's a child near you who is crying loudly to please get me out of the room now, but it goes on and on and on, and you just want to die.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're praying for the Lord to return.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when the person in front of you literally happened, when the person right in front of you keeps nodding off and then jerking back, you know, and you jump every time.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So number eight, when the preacher does any of the following three things during a sermon, he spits, this is why it's usually empty in front of here, he sweats or he cries.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've done all three in the same sermon.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Number nine, when a preacher or evangelist gives an altar call and no one responds, so he gives it again, and then he waits and he waits and he waits.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: That makes me feel uncomfortable.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Especially one time when I was at a visited on Sunday night another church in down and have a Sunday evening service, and it was a church across town, they didn't know me.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was sitting in the back, small group of people, he gave the invitation, and he just kept looking at me, gave the invitation again.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: He knew that I needed to come forward, and I waited until he bowed his head to pray and then I ran.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, number 10, when somebody in the lobby or in your Sunday school class is passionately talking about a political issue and assumes you agree with him or her and you don't, doesn't that make you feel uncomfortable?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: But here, many of the most uncomfortable things I think about church uh revolve around praying.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you're asked to pray out loud, when someone who's praying next to you keeps calling God daddy or Abba, or prayers that fill every pause, you know, every comma or period, fill every pause with either a name for God or the word just.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, just come into our lives and just, and we just, anyway.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or that moment in a church, class, or group when you just know the teacher is gonna call on you to close in prayer.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you are avoiding eye contact with them completely, but they call on you anyway.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uncomfortable.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And at some of those times I'm refined, I'll remind you of the Jim Gaffigan joke in which he says uh sometimes he sees somebody praying in church and he asks, Would you mind doing that outside?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's making me feel a little uncomfortable.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, we're not just uncomfortable with prayer when we're at church.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're uncomfortable with prayer, I think, pretty much all the time.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that if I ask a hundred of you, no more than one or two of you would say that you're comfortable with your prayer life.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the list of Christians down through the centuries who have confessed that they're very uncomfortable or ashamed of their prayer life reads like a who's who.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hudson Taylor, Charles Spurgeon, A.W.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tozer, Billy Graham, Max Lucato, on and on.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: One famous Christian said, If I know anything about any Christian's heart, I know that you are often sick of your own prayers.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't think of what to say.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or you tell God that He's majestic, but then you recall that your pickup needs an oil change.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or you promise God that you'll fight the good fight, and then you doze off as you speak.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: You feel self-conscious, you feel fake at prayer, you try to confess your sins, but your conscience is so slippery that it won't come clean.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided to pick a text out of the Bible that I think addresses three of our most common uncomfortablenesses about prayer.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, text phone, you may want to turn to the Sermon on the Mount, that's Matthew 5 through 7, to the middle chapter of Matthew 5 through 7, that's Matthew chapter 6, to a famous passage in which Jesus addresses what I think are three, maybe the three, most uncomfortable things that we feel about prayer.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: First one is about yourself.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know that you hesitate to go to prayer because you feel like I'm not worthy.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Second one, that I don't I don't know the words to say.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And third, that I don't like to pray out loud.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm nervous about that.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start right off and notice that the very first words, these first three words in English, are when you praise.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Talking to disciples, and in the context, by the way, here's the interesting thing.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: This passage follows a passage I preached on about a month ago or two.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 5, where Jesus says, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of these Pharisees, religious leaders, you don't stand a chance of going to heaven.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what a lot of now that confused them because they're thinking it's impossible.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody more righteous than the Pharisees.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that was Jesus' point, as we find out later on, on and on and on.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, I am the new Moses, I'm gonna give you a new law.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're following their own law, you need to look to me, and it is through trusting me, basically.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he's gonna say.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Publican Pharisee.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's the person who is sinful, recognizes it, stands on the street corner, doesn't say, Lord, I thank you, I'm better than him, but says, Lord, I'm unworthy.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I completely trust in you and your salvation.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But now he comes to chapter 6 and he says, you know what?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about religious ceremony and being better than the Pharisees.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, and he gives three examples almsgiving, praying, and fasting.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I want to tell you, I got real problems with the way that the Pharisees handle that, and I don't want you to give or to pray or to uh fast the way they do.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's the context.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he starts and says, when you pray, which lets us know that he just assumes that we will.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't pray either privately or publicly, and I hope I hope you don't pray publicly if you don't pray privately, but if you're not praying, then you need to know that Jesus just assumes that every believer, every one of his, every one of his brothers and sisters, every one of the children of God is going to pray.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is that central to the Christian life.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you just simply need to do it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's more central than anything else, talking with God, being with God, prayer.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to do it whether you do it well, whether you do it poorly, you have to do it, for it's at the very heart of your spiritual life.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So let's deal with these objections because Jesus does them.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: The first is the me objection.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: That is the people who say something that doesn't reflect reality inside themselves.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the problem is that I feel like a hypocrite.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons I sometimes don't run into the presence of the Lord is I've said things recently that I feel disqualify me from stepping into the palace room, into the presence into the throne room of heaven.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or I've thought things that make me feel unqualified to step into God's presence, or I've done things that make me feel unqualified to step into God's presence.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that I would be a hypocrite to go to prayer right now because of what I've thought, what I've said, or what I've done.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does address hypocrisy in verse 5.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is true, he says, this does disgust me.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the interesting thing is that when you look closer, you see that where he sees hypocrisy is not in people like me who know they've fallen short and are willing to come into God's presence and admit that at the start.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: But where Jesus is worried about hypocrisy is in those people who don't think they've fallen short, who believe that they are spiritual, that God should pay attention to them and see themselves, in fact, as more spiritual than the people around them, and who are eager to show others that they are spiritual leaders.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Back in the 1980s, uh, which I lived in, um the Los Angeles Lakers were one of the great uh dynasties in sports.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: They had Magic Johnson, they had Kareem, they had James Worthy.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and but the team, and the team in those years, in that decade, decade of the 80s, was known as Showtime.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: In a city that had Hollywood, a city that had Disney World, the Lakers were the greatest show of all.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when Kareem would grab a defensive rebound and he would uh zing a bullet pass down to Magic, who would then uh give a rim-shattering dunk at the other end, Chick Hearn, Chick Hearn was the famous announcer of the Lakers of that time, would yell out, and I would hear it on the radio, uh, he would scream out, it's showtime, and the crowd would just go crazy.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when it comes to sports and when it comes to entertainment, that's what we like and that's what we expect, and we there's no problem with that.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Show is what we pay for.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But when we go, when we move from the arena or the theater into church or into the kingdom of God, into the presence of our Creator and God and Father to speak to him, putting on a show for bystanders is dangerous.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying here, prayer is not showtime.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to walk humbly with your God.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, God means it.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: He tells us in his word that he reserves the right to listen or not to listen to any prayer depending on the hypocrisy of the person who's uttering it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Hitler, Adolf Hitler gave five major addresses in the 1930s before he kicked off World War II, to you want to take over the world and kill all the Jews.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Five major addresses in the 1930s to the German people, and in every single one of those, he either began or ended with a very spiritual-sounding prayer.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so religious people all over Germany said to each other, Oh, it's so nice to finally have a leader who prays publicly.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: But do you think God listened for a moment to any of those prayers?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Praying in and of itself doesn't mean a thing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: It can be a tool of the enemy to draw in gullible, right religious people like it did in Germany.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: But people in Jesus' day must have been shocked and horrified when Jesus said that God completely ignored the prayers of the hypocritical Pharisees.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But he said it.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says no religious performance gets into the kingdom of God.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we do about this first objection?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let me dispense with that and go on to the second, which is the objection of me, and I uh don't want to go into God's presence.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uncomfortable doing that when I have said, thought, or done something I'm ashamed of.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we see here we have two equal and opposite problems.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have the problem of the arrogant Pharisee, the pompous Pharisee who thinks that he's got God in his back pocket because he's better than most people.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us aren't like that.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you're not like that.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you are.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have the opposite problem, and that is the problem of feeling like a hypocrite because we have a self-image issue.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have a biblical self-image.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: We don't think God will listen to us because we're not as good as other people around us.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not good enough to be listened to God.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're more like the publican or tax collector.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if we were gonna pray, we would start off, God be merciful to me, a sinner.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden we're thinking, aren't we?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: That one phrase on the lips of the worst person in Jewish society, the tax collector, was enough to win God's mercy.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: That one short, humble request on the lips of a terrible robber, thief, perhaps killer hanging next to Jesus on the cross, one short prayer was sufficient to grab God's ear and save him.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So apparently, what God would say to us is I know you're unworthy.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know you have no right to step into my throne room, but come in here anyway, get in here and talk to me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because my grace flows like water down to the lowest part where you are.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way grace works.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when my son was on earth, he's saying to you today, it was the lowest part, the dregs, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the dying thieves who reached out their hands to receive any bit of grace while religious professionals closed theirs into tight fists.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in prayer, having open hands is the only requirement.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: A broken and a contrite spirit is what I require.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the reply to the first objection, I don't feel like going to prayer.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's too uncomfortable because I'm a hypocrite.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good place to start.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Go anyway.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's just where you need to be.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, second uh uh objection.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the first was I'm not worthy, right?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And truly he says uh they've received their reward in full.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um that is, if you pray uh uh uh arrogantly and pompously, uh, and if people come up afterwards and say that was an awesome prayer, you've received your reward.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get one in heaven, okay?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But when you pray, he says, go into your room, shut your door, and pray to your father who's in secret, then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you, verse 6.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now we move to the second uh objection.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer is uncomfortable because I don't know the words.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hear this a lot.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't know the words to say.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I stumble and I fumble in prayer.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of Christians do.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I do.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and and this is a major uncomfortability for Christians.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us believe that there are Christians out there, we've sometimes heard them pray, who seem to have a secret code.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Know the secret code for prayer, because I mean their prayers are just smooth and they're beautiful and they're cool and they make us never want to pray again, right?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that uh a number of you being really good parents know this issue, the difficulty of words, and so you start your even your children when they're very little by trying to help them with the words of prayer.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that some of you who have taught your children very simply to say thanks prayers, um, please prayers, and sorry prayers.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, thanks prayers, thank you, Lord.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Please prayers, please, can I have that?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And sorry prayers, Lord, you know, I'm not, I'm I haven't been good.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Those are prayers of thanksgiving, confession, and what we call supplication request.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've given them, if you've taught them that, a gift more valuable than taking them to Disneyland.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's just fantastic.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as they get a little older enough to understand it, you add the fourth and the most important of all elements of prayer.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is words of adoration.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like the words we sang in our worship in both of our buildings this morning.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: We praise you, Lord.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're the King of glory, we adore you, you're the God above all gods, you're the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, how great thou art.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Words of adoration.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we know we should start our prayers with adoration because the very next words Jesus is going to say after our passage, Matthew 6, 9 through 13, is the famous Lord's Prayer when he says, pray like this, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: That prayer divides in two.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: The first half he tells us to pray to God about God, second half we're supposed to pray to God about ourselves or people.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the Lord's Prayer is not the best title for it, right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it should be called the disciples' prayer, because certainly the Lord could never pray that prayer.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: He can never pray, forgive us our trespasses.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, but whatever you call it, it's clear that this model prayer tells us that the single most important category of prayer is adoration, and that's how we ought to start.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hallowed or honored or lifted up be your name.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you teach your children now to pray acts prayers, A-C-T-S, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you have prayed that, taught other people to pray that?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not great, it's just awesome.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: But even though you know and your children now know the categories to pray, coming up with the right words to pray is still not automatic.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's still uncomfortable, it's still a problem, whether you're a child or an adult.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: We quickly run out of words, right?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Our mind goes blank, or we won't catch ourselves having just said something stupid or worse, something selfish.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus addressed the words that we say, notice, he doesn't seem worried that we might stumble or fumble over our words or say something stupid, surprisingly, stunningly, to his first listeners.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: What he says is that the Father doesn't want us to pray too many words.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you pray, don't babble like the pagans, since they imagine they'll be heard for their many words.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And back in his Day, the Jews had prayers for everything.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, they still do.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for every type of celebration and every type of little thing, and they would say them over and over.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: But but what Jesus is saying in this don't meaningless babble reminds me especially.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, like the pagans are literally the Gentiles, or what we say as false religions.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been around the world to certain religions, you know how common this is.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: That um, for instance, uh, the number one uh tourist site in Kathmandu, some of you have been with me to Nepal, Kathmandu, is whatever this is called, Swayabunath Temple.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You hike hike up a hill, and they have these prayer wheels everywhere.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Buddhist, uh Buddhist religion.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so people are constantly swinging them around because they have prayers on them, and you just roll them around, and and that constantly, and by the way, it's called the monkey temple, and you are to avoid monkeys at all costs because they're full of disease there, and so uh, but if you swing a prayer wheel too close to them, they may, if you don't give them a peanut, bite you.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um, that was extra.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was just bonus right there, right there.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: But you can see they have different words on each one of them, and I can't read the words, but uh you swing those around, and it every time it goes around, it repeats that prayer, it repeats that prayer.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, that is just a perfect illustration, I think, of what Jesus is talking about.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is, uh, do we um do we ever do anything uh like that uh in in in in our life?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do we ever hear anything like that in our churches?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not a babbling, you know, meaningless repetition.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the way Numeric and Standard Bible, by the way, it says, do not use meaningless or vain repetition as the Gentiles do.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, this is really interesting, isn't it?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because you and I know that we ought to be praying more, and now we hear Jesus saying, he's basically almost quoting a verse from Ecclesiastes.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes 5, 2 says, Since God's in heaven and you're on earth, in other words, since God is God and you're not, let your words be few when you step into his presence.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you that I think sometimes we Christians do not believe James when he says that the fervent prayer of a single righteous man availeth much, especially when we get to this period of time just before the election, because we tend to think that if we could only get 5,000 people, am I right about this?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: If we could only get thousands and thousands of people praying, then we could almost compel God to give us either the president or the Supreme Court justice that we want.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: We will batter down his reluctance if we have more than one person, if we can just get hundreds or thousands.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to hear me wrong.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's absolutely wonderful.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I posted on my Facebook page a link to the prayer event that happened in Washington, D.C.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: recently.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a wonderful thing when hundreds and thousands of God's people come together to pray, but it is a shamefully, let me say this slowly and clearly, it is a shamefully low view of God to think that we can force favors from him by the sheer number of people who pray a sheer number of words to him.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's something confusing about that because I don't have it here.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because of uh of a parable that Jesus tells that's recorded in Luke 18 about a nagging woman, or that's usually what it's called.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a persistent widow who feels that she's not been shown justice, and so she persistently bangs on the door, remember of the judge, until he finally wakes up and comes to the door, and then Jesus says, You need to pray like her.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hold it just a second.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't she say in the Sermon on the Mount that we let your words be few and don't ramble and so forth?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do you fit that together with praying over and over again, repeating yourself?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the solution is in the motive, right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the motive for they think they imagine they'll be heard for their many words.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: They think they will impress God, that they will be heard over other people.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So here's how I would put it together.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not okay to ramble and babble on and on if your motive, the motive of your long prayer, is to impress God and get in his inner circle that way and get him to do what you want.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it is okay, in fact, it's what God wants, for you to go on and on if your motive is desperate, like the woman, to get God to hear and to see how helpless you are and how desperately you need his help.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think God's saying here, I think Jesus is saying, I like it when you keep it simple.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's saying, I like it when you get to the point.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure he's saying, I don't like showtime.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like cliches.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't praying, I don't like praying for the sake of the people who are hearing you.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we come to words, um he goes on to say, when you pray, get in your room, shut your door, pray to your father who's in secret.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Your father who sees in secret will reward you.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I think there's a lesson here about words that I want to end with before I uh finish my message or go to the third point.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Martin Lloyd joins one of the great preachers of the last generation preacher at Westminster Chapel in London.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put it this way, I love this quote.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Above all, and this I regard as the most important of all, he calls it his number one law of prayer.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Always respond to every impulse to pray.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because where does that impulse come from?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So never postpone it, never push it aside because you're too busy, always respond to it immediately, always thank God.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: If it happens to you frequently, always respond to every impulse to pray.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And some of my other favorite Christians have said something similar to this.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Gilbert, Gil uh uh uh uh G.K.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Chester said, you say grace before meals, uh the journalist, the writer of 1900.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, but I say grace before the concert, and grace before the play, and grace before I open a book, and grace before painting, swimming, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, always respond to even the slightest impulse to pray.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or Stonewall Jackson, when we take our meals, I say grace.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: When I take a drink of water, I always pause as my palate receives the refreshment to lift up my heart to God in thanks.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I drop a letter in the box, he says I say a quick prayer for the person that it's going to.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I go to the classroom and I wait for the arrangement of the cadets in their places, that's my time to intercede with God for them.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of every familiar act of the day, in other words, always respond to every impulse to pray.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, as you're constantly, and uh this is one of my number one rules for prayer in my later life, because constantly people come up and they ask me to pray or again, email to pray, and so forth.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I found so much guilt riding in my heart in the past, because I always say, I'm gonna pray.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll pray for you.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I realize a week later I hadn't prayed for.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Two weeks later, I would realize, uh, and so I now I immediately, always immediately, that's why if you come up and ask me to pray, I'll say, Well, hold it right there.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll pray right then.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And after a while, when you're doing this so often, when you're shooting up flare prayers, every time you think of Ralph or Bev or anybody else, you know, Ron, Lord, he's getting surgery tomorrow, you know, and you just say a say a prayer immediately, then all of a sudden you realize the words, the words are not the key.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's simply going into God's presence, stumbling and fumbling out something, and God really doesn't care whether or not you're eloquent, right?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you're getting the prayer done and you're praying and you're not making a promise that you're not going to keep.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh third, prayer is uncomfortable.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel worthy, I don't know the right words.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: The out loud thing, you know how many of us, there's so many folks, because I mean, really, public speaking is the number one fear in America, and public praying is even worse because you know you gotta be spiritual while you're doing it.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so a lot of really good people have difficulty with this.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus addresses it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what he says is, you know what?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care about public prayer very much.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would quit rating that as more important than private prayer.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Private prayer is the key.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to prayer, go into your room, shut your door, pray to your fathers in secret, then your father who sees done in secret will reward you.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now it seems like he's saying, and some people do say this, no, I'm not gonna pray here at the restaurant, not gonna pray for the meal, no, I'm not gonna pray for our family dinner, because Jesus said only pray in your bedroom, closet.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: But is he really saying no more family prayers at bedtime?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is he really saying don't pray out loud at meals?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Can't be, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus prayed in public.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: He prayed on the cross, he prayed before publicly before he brought Lazarus out of the tomb.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: He prayed a blessing out loud in front of thousands at the feeding of the 5,000.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Matthew 18, he's going to say where two or three are gathered together to pray.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: There I am in the midst.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: The early church from the book of Acts clearly prayed publicly.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: 120 of them prayed, and that preceded and helped bring about the day of Pentecost, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer was a public a part of every one of the public gatherings in the book of Acts.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pile, Paul, and Silas prayed at midnight in the prison so that the whole prison could hear, and God responded with an earthquake.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Elijah, surrounded by thousands on Mount Carmel, prays and firefalls.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: My dad once counted 300 public prayers in the Bible.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: He was said I a little bit more than that, he thought.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there are all kinds of public prayers in the Bible.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Some where people are standing, some where people are sitting, some where people are lying on their face, some where their faces are turned to heaven.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, by the way, it seems they prayed with their eyes open.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're their eyes open.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: But public prayer is clearly a good thing.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: What Jesus has to be saying is that private prayer needs to be your major prayer.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: You need to find a private place, quiet place.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Close your door if you need to, lock it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: My mother used to use the bathroom because with 12 children it was impossible to find any other place, and it was the only door with a lock, you know.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you find a place, and when prayer request comes into your mind, you grab that, you go to your private place, and and you pray.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing I'd say is the public prayer, therefore, he's saying, has to be the overflow, overflow, the overflow of your private prayer.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Private prayer has to be the key.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the danger sign is if I feel if I pray more in public than I pray in private, danger, danger, danger, right?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's a problem.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus prayed in public, but they were always short prayers.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: He prayed long prayers, he prayed for hours, he prayed so much in private.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when you pray, make the Heavenly Father your focus.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let me wrap up, get closer to wrapping this up.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we most guilty here with our public prayers and so forth?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that, I'd say that we have to, we need to watch out.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: We need to start cleaning our prayers out from our cliches, especially in public.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: The, you know, the words we use like hedges and bindings and blessings, and laid on my heart and covered with the blood, and lifting up and letting go and coming in like a flood and calming the seas and blessing and guiding us.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And amen, amen.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and some people can link those together in ways that just are so sublime for those of us who have been Christians for 95 years that we just think it's wonderful.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to confess that I have fallen prey to all of the temptations that Jesus is sharing today.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: The temptation of praying in public for the sake of people who are listening.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago we hosted a prayer meeting.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was part, agreed to be a co-host of a city, sort of a citywide, but it was pretty small, just several churches here in town.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And all the other churches were charismatic churches, a group of people that I have a real heart for.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and we met at different churches and so forth, and the number of TBCers grew less and less, and we hosted one at our church.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing about it was that everybody else, other than the TBCers, came from not just charismatics, but they were a certain brand of charismatics, and they knew how to pray.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were able to somehow string together in a mesmerizing way prayers that never had a period at the end of a sentence, you know, like the way some of us pray, you know, instead of commas or instead of periods that always had uh the name of the Lord, Lord God, or something else, and it was just, I mean, and so I confess I did not even pray once during that hour, hour and a half, you know, prayer meeting because I felt like it would have been like, you know, uh, in the context of Martin Luther's I Have a King I Have a Dream speech, me standing up and saying twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder, you know, or something.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so then as we came close to the close of this prayer meeting, which is just, again, it was mesmerizing, listening to even the young people, even the youngest of people, even an eight-year-old, you know, just prayed for like five minutes and just not, never, never took a breath.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how he did it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was just astounding.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: I suddenly became sitting there, I became petrified by a great fear that the person that I'd asked to be in charge said, a pastor, that he was gonna call on me to close in prayer.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the time came, and he walked to the front, and I hunched way, way down in my seat, and I did not make eye contact.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Pastor Jim, would you close in prayer?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I confess, I mean, you look at me, you think, that shouldn't be a problem for you.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Pray it all over the world.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was terrified.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: How could I possibly pray a prayer that would not cause me to be looked down on by everyone present?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was getting what I deserved because I remembered at that moment, just a split second, I remembered about 20 years before, during the middle of the day, I got a phone call on my cell phone.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was outside, and and the person on the other one was a U.S.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Congressman from calling from Washington, D.C., that I knew, and he was a Christian.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Jim, you gotta help me, you gotta help me.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, What?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Tonight I have to speak.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I've been asked to pray at a national event where the president is going to be, and I don't know what to say.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Could you please tell me what to say?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Could you please give me the words?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to sound like a fool.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking, and I went, brother, you know, just be yourself, talk simply, give a brief prayer, just you know, and uh I as I'm sitting there though, and as he said, Pastor Jim, would you please pray?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, wow, I'm getting what I deserve, you know.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I would like to say here that I prayed a simple, authentic, heartfelt prayer, even though it had commas and periods.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to say that.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I confess I yielded to the temptation.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: I did not take my own advice.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I stood up, took a really deep breath, adopted the right tone and passion, and tried to just get up to the standard of that eight-year-old that I remembered from a few minutes before.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just, I prayed honestly to be heard by men.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I confess it.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew I was doing it while I was doing it.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Once in a while, I thought, uh, God, I hope you're listening.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just so relieved later that no one came up, that the eight-year-old boy didn't come up and say, that was a lame prayer.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I thought, okay, okay, I reached the bar.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, what I'm saying is, this is a temptation for all of us.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's really tough, but this passage says your objections, don't worry about them.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, you know, it's important that you learn how to pray publicly, okay, out loud.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there, and there are simple ways to do it.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I know one man who said, I know I need to do it.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know it'll encourage other people, I know it'll be good for my faith.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so he said, I'm gonna pray out loud with my own children every night, just so I can get practice.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that helped him.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important that you that you don't start with strangers, that you get with friends, maybe close friends or a wife or children, and you pray out loud.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, most of the prayers in the Bible, they hardly knew anything like this private prayer we do today.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have quiet times.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are times David always talked out loud.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus talked out loud on the mountainside, or his disciples wouldn't have said, Oh, teach us how to do that.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so so when you're in your private closet or bedroom, pray out loud.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: It keeps you from falling asleep, keeps your mind wonderfully concentrated, right?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a bonus.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is just a tip for learning how, for learning how to pray out loud.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: You do need, you do need to once in a while pray in public, even if you're scared.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's all I'm saying here.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you will come to the all church prayer meeting, which uh I think it's been advertised.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's October 29th.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's the week right before the election.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's hosted by the young adults, Alex Wolfe, and so forth.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's for the whole church.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll come and I hope there if there's an opportunity for you to pray that you'll pray, keep it short.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Public prayer is short.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and um, and listen, um, maybe what what Tim Keller says about prayer is what Jesus is trying to say the infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's your private prayer life.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let everything else flow out of your private prayer life.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter whether you stumble and fumble in prayer privately, does it?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't matter.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not show, it's just to God.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and and do it out loud.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um, Jesus ends with this statement: don't be like them, for your father knows the things you need before you ask him.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so the natural question is then why do we even do this at all?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's how Jesus ends.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the answer, which leads us right into communion, is given by C.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis, who wrote a couple of books on prayer, and who said this prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it, okay?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's the S of ACTS.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration is its sanctuary, and get this.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: The presence and vision and enjoyment of God is its bread and wine.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying is, you know what?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: In the end, since God already knows what you're gonna say, it really isn't so much the word that you say to God, it's being with God, it's communion with God, it's intimacy with God.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would say as you take the cup and the bread this morning, this wine and bread is a picture of the heart of prayer.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do nothing else this morning, I'd ask you if you enjoy the wine and the bread of God's intimate presence.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to come in and talk to him, no matter how you've behaved, thought, spoken this last week.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Come to him, talk to him, and he welcomes you into his presence.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you look at the cross and you see his son and you say, Thank you, Lord.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for the privilege of being able to come and talk to you.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're our Father, but you're also the Almighty God of the universe, and you're so holy that we feel dirty when we're around you.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Be merciful to us.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: We know we're sinners.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wish we'd lived better this last week.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Try to let Christ live through us this next week.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the opportunity to come and enjoy the bread and wine of your presence.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for this bread and cup that brings us there in Jesus' name.