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Sermon on the Mount: "Two Options, One Way", Matthew 7:13-14 · Clifford Baptist

• 0:00
  Welcome to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst. Please join us today as Pastor Jeffrey Campbell leads us in an in depth study of the Sermon on the Mount. Today's scripture is Matthew, chapter six, verses five through eight. And the sermon is entitled Warning about Prayer. I'm grateful to continue along as we just study together the Sermon on the Mount and the important aspect of prayer that we're going to look at tonight.
• 0:30
  I want to start and you don't have to turn there. You can just listen if you so choose. But Psalm 32, Psalm 32, verses 5 and 6 say this. I acknowledge my sin unto thee. My iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.
• 0:51
  For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.
• 1:04
  Those words of verse number six, that every one that is godly shall pray, those are striking words.
• 1:13
  And when we understand that, you may say, geoffrey, you're preaching to the choir.
• 1:18
  You shouldn't have to tell a church that they need to pray. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to remind you because I think tonight, as you will see, Jesus will take that opportunity to tell his believers, not ask them to pray, but remind them when you pray, they are expected to pray. And tonight we understand that the godly people, even in the old Testament, Psalm 32, when you pray, you are expected, expected to pray. The godly need to talk to their Lord tonight. I've titled this message A Warning about Prayer. A Warning about Prayer. Godly people need to seek God.
• 1:59
  And you may say that's common knowledge, but I think there are times and even seasons of our life where we can be in ruts or we can go through times where we're not praying and we're not dependent on the Lord like we need to be.
• 2:15
  Maybe prayer time gets rushed or maybe there are seasons when prayer is non existent and so godly people need to seek God. And one of the greatest ways that we seek God is through that conversation and that intentional time with the Lord. Certainly we can sit aside a couple hours a week in worship. I'm not talking about going to church tonight, talking about a daily need that you need time with the Lord.
• 2:49
  It is an expectation as Jesus addresses it tonight as we will see three of the four verses that we will look at contain the instructions or the phrase when you pray.
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  Jesus expects his followers to talk to him, to be in communication with him. And so these are warnings and directions tonight as we look together about prayer. So Matthew chapter number six. And I'm gonna start tonight with verse number five. Last week, I'm gonna say this before I get started. Last week we talked about when you are helping those in need, when you give, when you help people in need, it's not about tithes and offerings. It's. It's about meeting needs. And that's expected of the people of God. But also tonight we're going to look at four verses that contain the expectation and the warning about prayer. Matthew chapter number six, starting with verse number five.
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  And when thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, in the corners of the streets, and that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
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  Very stern words. Tonight you're going to get four warnings. The first one is this.
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  Don't pray for show.
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  Don't pray for show.
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  When we read verse number five, we are on the heels of helping somebody in need. And last week we discussed you can help with for the wrong reasons.
• 4:25
  And tonight you're going to see too, you can pray for the wrong reasons.
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  And one of those means of praying in the wrong way starts with the warning of don't be like the hypocrite.
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  So the reminder that the hypocrite, the Greek word there, is a Greek actor that changes mass to play different roles.
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  So an actor, if you will, you put on one mask to play one part, you take that mask off, you put on another mask to play another part. That's the idea of the hypocrite. And so the first warning in verse number five is this.
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  Don't act like something you are not.
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  That hits home when we are reminded, don't be like that hypocrite. Don't be like the Greek actor that changes mask. Don't be like the religious leaders of the day that looked one part, and then just moments later they would take up another role.
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  And we see that warning is, don't be fake.
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  Don't be like the hypocrite. Don't be somebody that you're not.
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  And this applies to prayer, one of the most important powerful tools that you and I possess.
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  It can be distorted if we treat it as if we're something we're not. There's a second warning in this verse, and that Is this. The second part of the warning is this.
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  Look at verse number five again. It says this.
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  When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the street that they may be seen of men.
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  The second part of the warning looks at what the hypocrites love.
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  And so the hypocrites love location.
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  They love the place that puts them in front of a lot of people.
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  And when they get to these locations, then they put the religious mask on and act religious.
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  And so the warning here for you and I is that the problem is that the love of praying is not the love that we talk to God or communicate with God, and it's the love that we need to be in front of people.
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  You see that, right?
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  The hypocrites in verse number five love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the street.
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  They love for people to see them praying. They love for people to hear their prayers.
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  In this day, prayers would happen morning and noon and evening, and the hypocrites would time their day, their prayer time, so that they just so happened to be in the right place at the right time.
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  And when they were in the right place at the right time, they began to pray.
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  And so we see that the warning here is the love of attention.
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  Be careful when you pray.
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  It's not about who you're talking to or who is watching you or listening to you.
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  But I do wanna make this clear.
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  Location isn't the issue here.
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  Jesus is not saying, don't you stay or pray in front of people.
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  Jesus is not saying, don't you stand in front of the church and pray. Jesus is not saying any of that. Jesus prayed in public, okay? So public prayer is not the issue, but the reason that you pray in public is the issue.
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  If you pray seeking attention for yourself, that's where the issue is.
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  They love to be seen.
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  These hypocrites loved recognition.
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  And they just timed out their days where they could be seen by. By men.
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  It had nothing to do with the Lord. When we think about prayer, when I think about prayer, when you think about prayer, it's our time to spend with the Lord. The hypocrites, all they would worry about is who would hear and who would see.
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  They were not worried about if God heard.
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  They wanted the approval of man.
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  And there's a third part in verse number five, a third warning there. And that is at the very end of the verse.
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  And here's what Verse number five says at the end, verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
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  The reward that these people, these hypocrites had would be the applause or the gratitude of men, not from God. The only reward they ever would get is an earthly reward. Is an earthly applause from that, not a reward from the Lord.
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  So when we understand this verse, a necessity, when prayer is a necessity, I believe it is. We must be careful of the motives of why we pray.
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  Why do we pray?
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  And that's a check of all of our hearts here. We all need to do a heart check of why do we truly pray?
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  Do we pray to be heard by man? Or do we desire to be heard by the Lord?
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  That's my desire.
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  And so tonight, that warning, the first warning, is, don't pray for show. Guard our hearts against the desire for attention or notoriety or approval of man.
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  That's not the purpose of prayer.
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  So don't pray for show. Look at verse number six.
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  But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet. And when thou hast shut the door, pray to the Father, which is in secret. And thy father, which is in secret, shall reward thee openly.
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  Point number two tonight is to pray in secret.
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  When we understand what that secret place is, Jesus turns his attention from the hypocrites and turns his attention to the followers.
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  He simply says this. When you pray, when you are talking to the Lord, when you pray, enter a closet, shut the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
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  A prayer life that gets God's attention instead of the attention of man.
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  How many of you tonight, if I ask you the question, did you want to get God's attention with your prayer?
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  I think all of us desire to reach the throne room of God and of grace.
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  That's our desire.
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  It's nothing that we can muster up to do that.
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  But what we see here is if we have and lead a life that makes it not about us, but desiring to get in tune and in touch with the Lord, it's amazing what you can do. Let me ask you about your closet tonight. I'm not talking about the closet that contains clothes and shoes and ties and all that.
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  I'm talking about your prayer closet.
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  Now, you may be sitting here saying, jeffrey, I don't have a prayer cloth.
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  That's okay.
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  Here's what I'm asking you. Do you have a place where you can go to get away from it all to talk to Jesus?
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  Some of us do that in the shower.
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  Some of us do that in our car.
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  Some of us do that in a Room, Go to the barn. That sounds like a good place to me. I love that.
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  Here's what I'm saying. There needs to be a place, a time in your day where. Where you go to get with God. That is the sole intention. Go meet God.
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  And I'm not necessarily talking about a place.
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  I'm asking you this. Is there a time in your day that you spend with God? Just like that, seeking his presence, seeking to get in touch with him?
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  So when I think about our prayer closets, I'm not asking you if you've got a place, but I'm asking you if there is a time where you know you meet God. For me, the early morning hours are gifts from God.
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  Now I know some of you sitting here say, nope, that's heresy, Jeffrey.
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  I don't agree with you.
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  I want, for some reason this. This body is waking up at 4:30.
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  I don't know why it does that.
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  But let me tell you what. When the world is still and I can slip out of the busyness of my life, my time is morning time.
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  And I cherish that.
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  I guard that time.
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  And so I pray that you do the same thing. Pick out a time. Maybe yours is at midnight.
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  I'm two hours gone.
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  But maybe that's the time where everything settles down and you can spend time.
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  Here's the focus.
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  Is there a time, Is there a place where you can go? Number one, do you have a prayer room? A prayer place? The second question I ask you this.
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  Does it have a door?
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  And what I mean by that is this.
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  Can you shut out all of the distractions of the world?
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  It must have a door.
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  It must be a time and a place where you can shut out the distractions. Here, look at verse number six. Again, it says this.
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  Jesus says, but when you pray, enter thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, I think that's important.
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  We can't just skip over that.
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  The importance of the door to the prayer closet is this. Nothing can distract you once you get there.
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  When we think about that, any little interruption, any little noise, any little distraction can distract you and get you off course of talking to your heavenly Father.
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  And so I made a note here. You don't need a phone in your prayer closet.
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  You don't.
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  But what you need. And I wrote down some things that maybe you could put in your space in your closet, in your corner, in your little niche in your car. Don't put them in your shower, okay? Don't put these things in your shower.
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  A Bible, a journal.
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  Play some Music, prayer cards or lists, devotional material.
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  These things need to be present when you spend time with the Lord. Now, I'm not saying if you don't have these things, you're not doing it right. I'm not saying that. Here's what I'm saying. When you enter the prayer room, this is your focus.
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  This is your focus.
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  And there needs to be times where the door is shut that we can just spend time with God. I'm gonna tell you a little something. If you ever come to the and the pastor's door is shut, when my door is shut, I'm not trying to get privacy.
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  I'm working on sermon material. And most of the time, staff knows when my door shut. You better leave Jeffrey alone.
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  But I do caveat this. If you need me, you knock.
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  Because it's me and God in there.
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  Every other minute of the day, my door stands open unless I'm talking with somebody.
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  Every other minute, my door is open to whoever will come. I have an open door policy. I worked 16 years in the corporate world. I had an open door policy.
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  And I continue that unless I'm with the Lord, then the door shuts.
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  And I would encourage you to devote time to a place and to privacy, that it's just you and God.
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  Now, I know that I'm talking to a wide scope of people here.
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  And we have abilities and we. That we need to. We have capabilities that we have to do. We have responsibilities that we have to do. We have families that we have to minister to. But in every one of your lives, every day, there should be moments where you can slip away.
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  The busyness needs to take a back seat to what God and you need to handle in business and in prayer.
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  So the warning is this. You can have a place.
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  And if you have an open door, you're going to be distracted.
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  Jesus says, go in that closet and shut the door.
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  And I think that's important.
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  Don't get distracted.
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  Don't lose or give up your time with the Lord. And so tonight, maybe there's a young family in here that has children and responsibilities and those sort of things.
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  When they're all asleep or maybe before they rise in the morning, beat them up and spend time with God.
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  When we think about spending time with God, it's vital to who we are.
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  It's vital to where we. How we approach Him. It's vital to the distractions that can deter us from what we need to do. The secret place needs to be a place that holds the attention of man and grabs the attention of God. I do have a note here. When we think about that secret prayer, the third thing that I want to say, you need a place. You need privacy and you need to pray. You need to pray. You. When you pray sincerely before the Lord in this secret place, there's no other ear that hears you other than the ear of our God. You are in tune with his heart. And so I want you to know what you have in the secret place. You may not have the attention of man, but you have the attention of God. We understand that that fervent prayer is important.
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  It avails much, the Bible says. And so we need we have the attention of God when given the opportunity to pray. Whether that's in a public place, it simply needs to be an overflow of what you are doing in your private place. So praying in public is not wrong. But remember, it's not for the audience. It's only for the audience that we talked about last week of one. So if you were to. If I were to call you out tonight and say, hey, can you close us in prayer? It's just you and Jesus. It's an overflow of the time that you spend in private prayer and your time with the Lord. And so I believe that praying in secret is very important because it teaches that it's not about us, it's about God. Those three words that begin with the letter P that you need, you need a place, you need privacy, and you simply need to pray. God honors sincere prayer. The end of verse number six. I want to say this before I move on. The end of verse 6 says this. Pray to thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. I don't know what that open reward looks like. I'm just going to be honest with you. We can throw things at it. We can take guests. Here's the reward of private prayer. God hears you and God will answer it. That's the greatest reward of prayer, is God hears it. And so just take that to the bank and whatever that reward in the future looks like. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole right now. Look at verse number seven. So I'm just going to remind you, point number one tonight was don't pray for show. Point number two is pray in secret.
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  Point number three, look at verse number seven. But when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Point number three is this prayer is more than speech or the sum of your words. The warning here is this. Don't pray like the heathen. What is the heathen? Now we've heard about the hypocrite. What's the heathen? The heathen is someone that does not know God. Those heathens would pray to alternate gods. And here's what the reference is to. As those heathens would pray to alternate gods, they would use phrases and chants and repetitions. They would pray to multiple gods at one time, hoping and wishing and praying that one of them would hear their prayer. But they would make the same prayer to each God. Let's pray to this God and this God and this God and this God. And it was repetitious.
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  But their desire is that maybe one of these gods would hear our prayer.
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  It was a lot of words. It was a lot of repetition. And so I want to warn you here, the warning is this. It's not about repetition.
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  It's not that you can't say the same thing over and over. It's not about even writing down your prayer. Some of you, when you pray, you have to write them out.
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  I'm actually for that.
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  Especially in your private time, if you journal and write things out, man, and you go back years and you remember what season you were in when you wrote that down, it's amazing what God can do through that.
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  And so I would actually encourage that. But the warning is this.
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  It's not about the length or the words that get the prayers answered.
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  Some people think if I pray this long prayer, I can rattle heaven's doors.
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  Or if I use those religious words, then God will hear me.
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  And the warning is this.
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  That's not the answer.
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  These heathens, they try to impress people with the words and the noise and their prayers.
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  And you know what the true God heard?
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  Babblings, vain repetitions.
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  If I could put it down in my own language, it would be, blah, blah, blah.
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  That's what God heard.
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  That's what God hears.
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  And so the warning is this. Don't think that you're not good enough to pray or that you don't have the right words, or you can't pray long. And I will tell you very publicly, I feel like I am not a good prayer.
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  I don't feel like I'm the best prayer. But you know how you get better at praying?
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  Pray, pray. So tonight, if you say, pastor Jeffrey, I'm not a good prayer, here's what I'm gonna tell you to do. Just keep on praying.
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  It's not about how you feel about your own prayers. It's not about the words that you use, it's not about the length that they are.
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  The warning of verse number seven, let's look at that again. When you pray, don't use vain repetitions as the heathen does, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. They think that what will get them heard is all of the words they use.
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  The length of their prayer, that's not what gets you heard.
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  And so the warning tonight is that prayer is more than speech or the sum, the total of your words as we see that those words land on empty ears and the prayer becomes empty as they go nowhere.
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  There's one more warning in verse number eight tonight and that says this, Be not ye therefore like unto them.
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  For your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him.
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  Point number four, prayer doesn't surprise God.
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  Prayer doesn't surprise God.
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  Jesus is referring to the hypocrite and the heathen telling his fathers, don't be like them. When you pray, don't desire attention, don't desire to be heard by people. When you talk to God, anything that you tell him, and you can tell him anything, it will not surprise him, it will not catch him off guard. He knows what you need. He already knows what you're going to ask or what you're going to say. And you may be sitting here tonight saying, well, what's the use of praying?
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  Because God wants to hear you dependent on him to meet the needs to meet what you have to say.
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  So it's not going to catch him off guard tonight.
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  There's one phrase that scares me to death and I know some of you gonna use this. Once I tell you this, when somebody walks up to me and says, I need to talk to you, you talking about stress overload. It's like, oh gosh, what have I done now? You know, I love the ones that say, I need to talk to you and everything's okay. Thank you for doing that. It eases my blood pressure a little bit.
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  But for just how God made me, my mind races to the worst.
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  That's just how God wired me. I need to talk to you. And I think those words that as you say that what's coming my way.
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  What am I getting myself into now?
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  My wife can tell me that my church, family.
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  I just want you to know my mind runs to the worst. But, but here's the thing. If I talk to people, people may surprise me.
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  But when you say, I need to talk to you, to God, you can't surprise him.
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  You're not gonna Catch him off guard, you're not gonna scare him, you're not gonna tell him anything that he doesn't already know. But here's what you need to understand too, and this is part of the warning is this you will have no influence on God.
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  Some of us pray like, like we're going to change God's mind.
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  And I think God will honor our prayer. Don't get me wrong here.
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  But there's some people, the hypocrite and the heathen thought that their many words and their public praying that somehow they were going to change and influence what God was going to do. And here's what Jesus says. There's no way you're not going to surprise, you're not going to influence God by what you are doing.
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  He knows.
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  So tonight's warning, here's what I'm thankful for. Tonight's warning is going to lead the way into the model prayer, the Lord's Prayer next week. What a beautiful example. And I pray that you will come back. Not as we look at the warning about prayer next week we're going to look at the way that we pray.
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  I grew up in the Methodist Church, the old Methodist Church.
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  I want to be clear of that.
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  I had the privilege to be a lay supply pastor and what that means that these churches were so small they could not afford a pastor.
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  So part of my younger years were spent leading two Methodist churches. One for two and a half years, one for a year and a half as a lay supply pastor.
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  Grateful for those churches. They took a chance on a very young and green guy.
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  And some people in this room remember those days.
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  God rest your memory there. I pray that you forget those days.
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  I went into my home church, the Little rock Church down 60 East Poplar United Methodist Church. It's Popular Methodist Church now or popular church name, sorry.
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  One of the things that I did as a young green immature.
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  I could use some other language there not very wise young man is I took the Lord's Prayer out of the service.
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  If any of you grew up in the Methodist Church, you know that's a no no. Like we say the Lord's Prayer every Sunday and we sing the doxology every Sunday, right?
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  I removed it just for a little season.
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  And the reason is this.
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  That prayer has some great truths in it, but it just became words.
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  We recite them, we say them just to pass the time.
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  I probably shouldn't have done it like that but when I reinstated it, the meaning it brought back to the church was unbelievable.
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  We can get caught up in Repetition of things that we do just to do it, of the religious things.
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  And what Jesus is saying to these religious leaders is that they were going through the motions. They looked apart, but they definitely were not reaching me, my Father in heaven. They had no communication there.
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  It was all done out of show.
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  It was all done for self approval. But when you come to me, know this, that you will not surprise me when you come. Your Father knoweth what things you have need of before you even ask him, before you ever say a word. The. The Lord knows your heart and he knows what you're gonna say and he knows what you need.
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  Tonight I think we could just be reminded that in that secret place, it should be reserved where we get in touch with our Father and he knows us better than anyone.
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  He knows what we need.
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  And here's what we need. We need believers to get back to the prayer closet.
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  That's the warning. That's the ultimate warning tonight that I'm leaving you with. Get back to the closet, shut the door, limit the distractions, and get in tune with God.
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  Prayer is not about show.
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  It's not about influence. It's not about being seen. It's not about how we sound or what words we use or the length of our prayers. We must desire the secret place. A place that puts away all distractions and prideful ambitions and depends on the Lord.
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  And I'll tell you this.
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  I believe that a church that prays in secret, the world will benefit from what overflows from the secret place.
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  And so tonight, what do we need to do to get there?
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  Some of you need just to pick a time and pick a place.
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  Some of you need to shut the door.
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  And some of us just need to pray.
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  Let's go to God, Lord, tonight.
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  Thank you, Lord, just for this challenge.
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  It's very personal to me, Lord. I believe the prayer has been a backbone of this ministry of this church for so many years.
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  God, I pray, Lord, that you will keep us a people connected to our Heavenly Father.
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  And we cannot do that without the secret place.
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  So, Lord, tonight I pray for that personal challenge for each one that is represented here, for that personal time, for that privacy that no distractions are there, and just the time to pray knowing that you already know.
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  We're gonna come before you and talk to you, God. Thank you.
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  Thank you for what you're gonna do through this lesson.
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  Maybe we can't see it or understand it right now.
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  Maybe there will be growth that happens in individual's lives.
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  Maybe we will see the overflow of what happens behind the closed door.
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  God, my prayer is that you meet your people in the secret place.
• 34:12
  My prayer is this, that the people find the secret place where they can meet their God.
• 34:20
  God, thank you for the warnings that we have seen.
• 34:24
  We pray that you limit any prideful things that stand in the way that would want to lift us up.
• 34:33
  And God, I pray, Lord, that you will just continue to go before us and lead us as we seek you your will and your direction. And it's in Jesus name I do pray. Amen.
• 34:46
  You've been listening to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church. You're always welcome to visit Clifford Baptist Church for Sunday School at 9:45 worship at 11:00am and Wednesday evening worship at 7:00pm Join us again next Sunday for Truth for the Journey.