Latest / Reformed Thinking / Fewer Words, Deeper Trust: Praying to the Father Who Knows (Matthew 6:7–8)

Transcript

Fewer Words, Deeper Trust: Praying to the Father Who Knows (Matthew 6:7–8) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Today we're undertaking a deep
• 0:03
  dive into a practice that you know for many of us, should feel
• 0:06
  like the purest and sweetest fellowship we have.
• 0:09
  We're talking about prayer. And yet, if we're being honest,
• 0:13
  it's so often feels fraught with with anxiety, with performance
• 0:17
  pressure, or just plain confusion.
• 0:19
  That's so true, we all feel it. We worry, you know, Am I saying
• 0:23
  enough? Am I saying it right?
• 0:24
  Are my words powerful enough to, I don't know, breakthrough?
• 0:27
  And that tension you're describing, that exhaustion of
• 0:30
  feeling like you have to perform for God, that's the very issue
• 0:34
  Jesus gets to in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount.
• 0:36
  So that's our focus today. Right, we are zeroing in on
• 0:38
  Matthew chapter 6, specifically verses 7 and 8, and our sources
• 0:42
  really push us to analyze what Jesus is teaching on prayer
• 0:46
  against the backdrop of well of deeply ingrained human habits.
• 0:52
  The habits of his day. The habits of his day, which
• 0:54
  were, you know, both the religious formalism of the
• 0:56
  Jewish leaders and also the wide-ranging Pagan superstition
• 1:00
  that was all around them. OK, so the mission for this deep
• 1:03
  dive is clear. We want to try and isolate the
• 1:06
  true theological foundation of Christian prayer because the
• 1:10
  central tension is this. Does God listen more carefully
• 1:14
  because we use more verbal technique, or maybe more words,
• 1:18
  or because we speak out of a confidence that's rooted in who
• 1:21
  He is? And the sources all point in One
• 1:23
  Direction. They affirm that the critical
• 1:26
  difference between, let's say, noisy, manipulative prayer and
• 1:30
  simple Christian communication is not a matter of style.
• 1:34
  It's not about how long you pray.
• 1:36
  It's not about the technique. It's not the technique, it's
• 1:37
  entirely a matter of theology. It comes down to what we believe
• 1:41
  about the character of the God when we pray.
• 1:44
  So if we can extract that core doctrine successfully today,
• 1:47
  we're really offering you, the listener, a way out, a kind of
• 1:50
  freedom from that performance anxiety that can turn devotion
• 1:53
  into just another human technique, a way to rest, a way
• 1:56
  to rest. OK, so let's unpack this by by
• 1:59
  setting the stage we need to get the context within the Sermon on
• 2:02
  the Mount. Matthew 6 isn't just some random
• 2:04
  collection of rules. It's Jesus's sustained
• 2:07
  instruction on the nature of what he calls Kingdom
• 2:10
  righteousness. He's redefining what it means to
• 2:12
  be righteous. He is.
• 2:14
  He's showing his followers what true obedience looks like, and
• 2:17
  he's contrasting it sharply with the the external piety that had
• 2:22
  become the standard display among the religious leaders of
• 2:25
  that time. The whole point of the Kingdom
• 2:27
  is that the inward motive has to outweigh the outward display.
• 2:31
  And that's such a key point because Jesus is arguing that
• 2:34
  even when you're performing acts of righteousness, things God
• 2:37
  actually commanded, the human heart is fully capable of
• 2:41
  corrupting them through self-interest, or, as we'll see,
• 2:43
  just plain faulty theology. So true.
• 2:46
  And to make this point, Jesus tackles 3 sort of representative
• 2:49
  religious duties that central to Jewish life, the.
• 2:52
  Big Three. The Big three, almsgiving,
• 2:54
  prayer and fasting. And in each case he follows the
• 2:57
  same pattern. He gives a warning against
• 3:00
  perverting it, a sharp distinction between the true and
• 3:02
  false way to do it, and then a promise of reward from the
• 3:05
  Father. And it's really interesting that
• 3:07
  prayer gets the middle position and it also gets the most
• 3:10
  extended treatment. It's almost like it's the hinge
• 3:12
  between how we treat our neighbors, which is almsgiving,
• 3:15
  and how we treat our bodies, which is fasting.
• 3:18
  Right. So let's look at the first
• 3:20
  distortion. Jesus addresses.
• 3:22
  We can call this the horizontal error, hypocrisy, or as our
• 3:25
  sources put it, prayer as religious theater.
• 3:29
  Love that phrase. It's.
• 3:29
  So good Jesus targets those who pray to be seen by others, he
• 3:34
  says. They deliberately choose
• 3:35
  prominent locations, synagogues, busy St.
• 3:38
  Corners, wherever they can perform their devotion for human
• 3:42
  applause. It's all about the audience.
• 3:44
  It's entirely man centered prayer.
• 3:46
  They are looking for human validation, not divine
• 3:49
  communion. And the warning Jesus gives is
• 3:52
  just stark. He says they have already
• 3:54
  received their reward. That's it.
• 3:56
  That's all you get. The praise of the spectators,
• 3:58
  that's the payment in full. So that first critique addresses
• 4:01
  the human centered corruption of prayer, where your motive is
• 4:04
  warped by wanting public acclaim.
• 4:06
  But then starting in verse 7, Jesus just pivots.
• 4:10
  He abruptly addresses a completely different discretion.
• 4:12
  The vertical error. The vertical error this is
• 4:15
  paganism or prayer is technique. What's different here?
• 4:17
  Well. What stands out is that the
• 4:19
  second critique isn't about wanting human praise.
• 4:22
  It's driven by a distorted, superstitious view of God
• 4:27
  himself. Jesus draws this clear line
• 4:30
  between his disciples and the Gentiles, the Pagan nations, and
• 4:33
  he exposes A theological error that's actually, I think, much
• 4:37
  more widespread and persistent than just religious showing off.
• 4:40
  And that's why Matthew 6, verses 7 and 8 is such a critical
• 4:44
  hinge. It transitions right from
• 4:46
  critiquing the hypocrites, you know, false motives toward man.
• 4:49
  And it sets up the model of the Lord's Prayer, the pattern for
• 4:52
  true prayer. It's arguing that genuine prayer
• 4:55
  has to be totally separate from both Jewish external formalism
• 4:58
  and, maybe more dangerously, gentile superstition, which is a
• 5:02
  trust in manipulation. OK, so let's turn to that
• 5:04
  specific error of the Gentiles. Jesus commands do not heap up
• 5:08
  empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they
• 5:10
  will be heard for their many words.
• 5:12
  That phrase heap up empty phrases.
• 5:14
  It's from the Greek word battleogis, and the sources say
• 5:17
  the best translation is just babbling.
• 5:20
  Babbling. Just babbling.
• 5:21
  It describes speech that is verbose, mechanical, and, you
• 5:25
  know, basically meaningless. It's just noise.
• 5:28
  But the problem isn't the volume of the noise, is it?
• 5:30
  No, not at all. The problem, according to the
• 5:33
  sources, is the logic behind the noise.
• 5:35
  The issue is trusting in the sheer quantity and the execution
• 5:39
  of the words themselves, rather than trusting the character of
• 5:43
  the God to whom you're speaking. So why?
• 5:45
  Why do they feel the need for this kind of verbal overkill?
• 5:48
  What's the thinking? Well, it all flows from what the
• 5:51
  sources call a theology of manipulation, and it's driven by
• 5:55
  three specific and deeply faulty assumptions about what God is
• 5:59
  like, assumptions that I think we offer unconsciously import
• 6:03
  into our own prayer lives today. OK, what's the first one?
• 6:05
  The first assumption is that of a reluctant or inattentive
• 6:08
  deity. A reluctant God.
• 6:09
  Yeah, Pagans didn't believe their gods were necessarily all
• 6:13
  knowing, or all powerful, or even always available.
• 6:16
  Their gods were often distant, maybe asleep, maybe busy
• 6:19
  fighting other gods, or just plain indifferent to human
• 6:22
  suffering. So if you start with that
• 6:23
  assumption that the deity is distant or asleep, then you have
• 6:27
  to generate enough internal force and external volume just
• 6:31
  to get their attention. You have to overcome their
• 6:34
  apathy. You have to.
• 6:34
  Wake them up you. Literally have to wake them up.
• 6:37
  You have to work hard just to secure their attention.
• 6:40
  Think about it, if a judge doesn't know you or care about
• 6:44
  your case, you have to talk louder, longer, present
• 6:48
  overwhelming evidence of your need just to get past that
• 6:52
  initial barrier of their disinterest.
• 6:54
  That makes sense. And that brings us to the second
• 6:56
  assumption. If the deity is reluctant, then
• 6:59
  your tools have to be pretty powerful.
• 7:00
  That's right assumption too. Trust in verbal magic.
• 7:04
  Verbal magic. Because the gods are seen as
• 7:06
  capricious, pagans believe that success in prayer relied heavily
• 7:10
  on, you know, verbal quantity and technique.
• 7:13
  They treated prayer less as communion and more as an
• 7:16
  incantation. Like a spell.
• 7:18
  It's a belief system where saying the right words, the
• 7:21
  potent formula in the right sequence and often enough can
• 7:24
  somehow force the God's hand or unlock a desired blessing.
• 7:28
  So the power isn't in God's wisdom, no.
• 7:31
  The power is located in the Human Speech Act.
• 7:35
  It's in my words. In your words, and this leads
• 7:37
  right to the third assumption, which is the logical conclusion,
• 7:39
  an attempt to control. Of course, when the power is in
• 7:43
  the technique, prayer stops being a petition and it becomes
• 7:46
  a lever. It's seen as a tool to, you
• 7:49
  know, twist the God's arm or maybe just wear down heaven
• 7:52
  through sheer, exhausting verbal repetition and intensity.
• 7:56
  It's an attempt to manipulate the outcome through your own
• 7:59
  performance rather than submitting to a divine wisdom.
• 8:02
  That's it. And we see such a perfect,
• 8:05
  visceral Old Testament illustration of this with the
• 8:08
  prophets of Bal in First Kings 18.
• 8:10
  I mean, it's just an incredible scene.
• 8:11
  It's amazing. They were crying out from
• 8:13
  morning until noon, shouting the name of Bale, leaping on the
• 8:16
  altar. And even cutting themselves to
• 8:18
  draw blood. Cutting themselves, they believe
• 8:20
  that intensity and duration were what was necessary to generate
• 8:24
  the energy required to compel bail to act.
• 8:26
  So Jesus is identifying the underlying logic there.
• 8:30
  Right, the assumption that the necessary force to affect change
• 8:34
  has to originate from the worshippers strenuous effort,
• 8:38
  not from the inherent character of the divine being.
• 8:41
  You know, I think we can all relate to that feeling of
• 8:43
  exhaustion if we try to modernize that analogy.
• 8:46
  The Pagan method is kind of like the desperate salesperson.
• 8:49
  Oh. That's a good picture.
• 8:50
  Imagine a client who is clearly distracted.
• 8:53
  You know they're texting under the table.
• 8:55
  They're looking for the door. The salesperson starts talking
• 8:58
  louder, rapidly increasing the tempo, cycling through the same
• 9:01
  points again and again. Just a verbal barrage.
• 9:03
  A verbal barrage. They're hoping that the sheer
• 9:06
  weight of words will prevent the client from walking away and
• 9:09
  finally just force them to close the deal just to get them to
• 9:13
  stop talking. And that dialogue isn't about a
• 9:15
  genuine relationship. Not at all.
• 9:17
  It's about control and overcoming reluctance through
• 9:21
  force. And that comparison really
• 9:23
  highlights the emotional burden. That kind of prayer is utterly
• 9:27
  exhausting. Because you're shouldering the
• 9:29
  responsibility for the outcome. If the prayer fails, it's
• 9:33
  because your words weren't fast enough or loud enough or correct
• 9:36
  enough. The failure is on you.
• 9:40
  What a terrible way to approach the creator of the universe.
• 9:43
  It shifts the burden of effectiveness onto the creature.
• 9:46
  It does. So now we get to the radical
• 9:48
  contrast, the true foundation of Christian devotion.
• 9:52
  Because Jesus doesn't just condemn the bad method, He
• 9:55
  surgically replaces the entire faulty Pagan theology with a
• 9:59
  single staggering truth. A truth that invalidates the
• 10:03
  need for babbling entirely. This is it.
• 10:05
  This is the living foundation. He says your father knows what
• 10:08
  you need before you ask him. And if we just sit with that for
• 10:11
  a moment, if we unpack that brief statement, it contains the
• 10:14
  entire doctrinal basis for restful prayer.
• 10:17
  It provides the only relief from the exhaustion we were just
• 10:20
  describing. So let's isolate the two great
• 10:22
  theological axes contained in that one statement.
• 10:24
  Let's do it. Axis one is divine omniscience.
• 10:26
  That's the God knows part. Our sources define God's
• 10:29
  knowledge as exhaustive and immediate.
• 10:32
  It's not knowledge he gathers overtime or learns from
• 10:35
  observation. No, it's complete.
• 10:37
  It covers all things, actual and possible, All events, all
• 10:40
  hearts, all needs perfectly. Yeah, he knows what is, what
• 10:44
  was, what will be, and even what might have been.
• 10:48
  And the critical phrase is that this knowledge exists before you
• 10:52
  ask him. That is monumental.
• 10:54
  It's so big it means that prayer categorically is never
• 10:58
  information transfer. OK, let me push back on that a
• 11:00
  little because this is where I think many of us get caught up.
• 11:02
  If we're not transferring information and He knows before
• 11:06
  we ask, why does Jesus still command us to ask?
• 11:09
  Doesn't asking still functionally feel like we're
• 11:12
  informing Him of our need? That's the key.
• 11:14
  Tension isn't it and we have to wrestle with it.
• 11:16
  But the reason it's not information transfer is
• 11:18
  theological. He is not some busy official we
• 11:20
  have to brief on the details of a case.
• 11:23
  We're not filling gaps in his awareness.
• 11:25
  Not at all. The pressure to explain
• 11:26
  everything perfectly is eliminated because his knowledge
• 11:30
  isn't external to him. It's identical with his infinite
• 11:33
  being. So when we talk about the
• 11:35
  Reformed understanding of God's sovereignty, the doctrine of
• 11:37
  decree, it implies that the timing, the means and the ends
• 11:42
  of all things are already established.
• 11:44
  And because God has ordained both the means, which is prayer,
• 11:48
  and the ends, which is the answer, well, the logic of using
• 11:52
  many words to update him or persuade him on what to do, it
• 11:55
  just collapses completely. It does.
• 11:58
  He doesn't need to be convinced, he needs to be acknowledged.
• 12:01
  You don't have to talk loudly to get the attention of one who has
• 12:03
  never, not for a fraction of a second, cease to see you or know
• 12:08
  the precise molecular structure of your immediate need.
• 12:11
  Wow. And that delivers us to access
• 12:13
  to which elevates this truth from just a simple, maybe even
• 12:16
  scary fact to an overwhelming comfort.
• 12:18
  And that is divine fatherhood. This is the game changer.
• 12:21
  So your father knows part. The hearer is not a generic,
• 12:24
  distant, or indifferent deity. The hearer is your father, and
• 12:28
  this single word transforms the entire context of the
• 12:31
  transaction from a fearful 1 to a personal covenant
• 12:34
  relationship. This defines true prayer as
• 12:37
  fundamentally filial, which means the speech of children.
• 12:41
  And this is the radical distinction that separates
• 12:43
  Christian devotion from every other religious system on the
• 12:46
  planet. It stops being the you know, the
• 12:49
  grobbling of slaves trying to placate a harsh master.
• 12:51
  Or the bargaining of clients appealing to a reluctant
• 12:54
  bureaucrat. Yes, you are speaking to one who
• 12:57
  knows you personally, loves you sacrificially, and is willing to
• 13:02
  hear you unconditionally because you are his child.
• 13:05
  So why do these two attributes, omniscience and fatherhood?
• 13:08
  Why must they always function together?
• 13:10
  Because omniscience alone, if you just sever it from
• 13:12
  fatherhood, is terrifying. And all seeing perfectly aware
• 13:16
  deity who is hostile to you, well, that would drive a Sinner
• 13:19
  to hide in shame, not rush to speak in confidence.
• 13:22
  I see but the combination of the two.
• 13:24
  The combination is the source of what our sources call Restful
• 13:27
  boldness. It means the believer speaks to
• 13:30
  one who is both perfectly aware of every circumstance, every
• 13:34
  sin, every weakness, and is perfectly willing to hear and
• 13:37
  act on behalf of his children. So we can rest in the confidence
• 13:40
  that he never stopped watching, never stopped knowing, and never
• 13:44
  stopped loving. And that combination
• 13:46
  fundamentally shifts the purpose of prayer.
• 13:50
  We move from an attempt to move God toward our will to an
• 13:53
  attempt to move our will toward His knowledge.
• 13:56
  The sources capture this so well, using the a contrast
• 13:59
  between a courtroom and a family dinner.
• 14:02
  Let's stay with this analogy for a minute, because I think it
• 14:04
  makes the distinction really practical for people.
• 14:06
  It's a great analogy. In a courtroom deposition, which
• 14:09
  is like the Pagan model of prayer, you must be exhaustive.
• 14:12
  You have to be repetitive and precise.
• 14:14
  The judge doesn't know you. He doesn't know you and he
• 14:17
  requires every single fact to make a decision.
• 14:20
  If you leave something out, you lose the case.
• 14:23
  Your words fail to perform right.
• 14:25
  But at a family dinner which illustrates Christian prayer, a
• 14:29
  child just says I'm hungry. Or maybe they don't even say
• 14:33
  that. They just start to fidget.
• 14:34
  And the parent doesn't need a 10 minute monologue detailing the
• 14:37
  child's caloric intake deficit. That's the omniscience part.
• 14:40
  No, of course not. They simply know the child's
• 14:42
  need and they desire to feed them.
• 14:44
  That's the fatherhood part. So the child speaks to commune
• 14:47
  and to express dependence, not to inform the parent of some
• 14:51
  unknown data point. The precision of the words
• 14:54
  simply isn't the point. And if the child's words are
• 14:57
  clumsy or broken or repeated, the parent still hears the need
• 15:02
  behind the clumsy speech because of the relationship.
• 15:04
  They're not judging the grammar. That understanding the doctrine
• 15:08
  of the omniscient Father, it it radically changes the practical
• 15:11
  nature of prayer. It is the liberation we need to
• 15:14
  escape the exhaustion of all that religious striving.
• 15:17
  It shifts the entire focus from the quality of our words words
• 15:20
  to the truthfulness of our heart.
• 15:22
  And since the Father comprehends the need before any request is
• 15:25
  even formed on our lips, the need for verbal clarity is just.
• 15:29
  It's fundamentally simplified. The pressure to provide
• 15:32
  exhaustive details, or the fear that if I leave something out,
• 15:35
  God will miss the point, that's completely removed.
• 15:38
  We are not expected to brief God adequately.
• 15:40
  What a relief. And this decisively removes the
• 15:43
  need for any kind of verbal magic or performance.
• 15:46
  Believers are liberated from needing ornate language or
• 15:49
  special vocabulary or some kind of expert tone.
• 15:52
  You don't have to generate the force or volume necessary to
• 15:56
  move a deity. Prayer doesn't have to be a
• 15:58
  performance aimed at controlling A reluctant God.
• 16:01
  It can just be the honest, unvarnished speech of a child.
• 16:05
  Let's go back to that desperate salesperson analogy.
• 16:08
  In that scenario, the salesperson feels this immense
• 16:10
  pressure to use persuasive rhetoric and complex arguments.
• 16:13
  Right, the whole outcome depends on them.
• 16:15
  But in contrast, the child praying to the father is free
• 16:18
  from all that pressure. If the child's speech is clumsy
• 16:20
  or repetitive or halting, the father sees beyond the form to
• 16:24
  the dependence in the heart. Knowing the Father sees the
• 16:27
  heart allows for honest imperfection.
• 16:30
  We are free from the pressure of polished rhetoric in our private
• 16:32
  devotions. A believer can come with, you
• 16:35
  know, halting broken sentences and still be completely heard.
• 16:38
  You can genuinely pray, maybe not even out loud, just thinking
• 16:41
  the words. Lord, I don't even know how to
• 16:44
  articulate this fear. This is what I need, you know,
• 16:47
  And you just rest entirely in His prior knowledge and His
• 16:50
  wisdom. You don't have to worry if the
• 16:52
  prayer is long enough or impressive enough to count,
• 16:55
  because the value of the prayer rests in His character, not your
• 16:59
  execution. And this realization replaces
• 17:02
  that anxious striving we talked about with what the sources term
• 17:05
  Restful boldness. Restful boldness.
• 17:07
  When we grasp that the Father's knowledge is perfect, we
• 17:10
  understand that He already distinguishes perfectly between
• 17:13
  our short sighted wants, you know, the things we think we
• 17:16
  need right now, and our real spiritual good.
• 17:19
  That's a huge distinction. It's huge.
• 17:21
  And this freedom means we can stop trying to twist his arm or
• 17:24
  trying to wear down heaven through sheer repetition of a
• 17:27
  specific desired outcome. We can pray with confidence,
• 17:31
  knowing we speak to one who understands what we should want
• 17:34
  better than we understand it ourselves.
• 17:36
  OK, so this brings us back to that big question I raised
• 17:38
  earlier. Why do we pray if He already
• 17:41
  knows? If God is sovereign and He has
• 17:44
  decreed all things and He knows what we need before we ask, is
• 17:47
  prayer just a formality? Is it just going through the
• 17:50
  motions? No, it's not a formality.
• 17:52
  The sources hold to the consistent doctrine that prayer
• 17:55
  is a means of grace. It is appointed not to inform
• 17:58
  God, but to well, to change the believer.
• 18:02
  God has ordained prayer to draw us into active, conscious
• 18:05
  fellowship with Him and to compel us to consciously
• 18:08
  acknowledge our poverty and His sufficiency.
• 18:10
  So we pray because he commands the means even though he has
• 18:14
  already decreed the ends. What's it?
• 18:16
  The act of asking is fundamentally an act of
• 18:18
  dependence. If we stopped asking because he
• 18:20
  already knows, we would stop being consciously dependent and
• 18:23
  that relationship, that fellowship, would just wither.
• 18:25
  So prayer changes us, not God's mind.
• 18:28
  Because his mind is already perfect.
• 18:30
  It's perfect. We are the ones who benefit from
• 18:32
  articulating our need. Because it reinforces our status
• 18:35
  as dependent creatures. Speaking to an omniscient
• 18:38
  Father, it trains us in humility and trust.
• 18:41
  You know, the sources really show how Jesus's critique of
• 18:44
  Gentile babbling provides a powerful doctrinal Plumb line
• 18:49
  for. Oh, absolutely.
• 18:51
  We might think we've moved past paganism, but so often modern
• 18:55
  theological movements just repeat the Gentile mistake just
• 18:58
  dressed up in Christian terminology.
• 19:00
  The underlying logic is always the same.
• 19:02
  You're transferring the power of the outcome from the divine
• 19:06
  character to the human performance.
• 19:08
  Let us start with a major example, the prosperity gospel
• 19:11
  and the word faith movement. I mean, this movement is exposed
• 19:14
  as the exact error of the Gentiles there really is.
• 19:17
  They adopt the view that positive confessions or
• 19:19
  specifically worded demands possess some kind of creative,
• 19:23
  almost magical force. The idea is that God is bound to
• 19:26
  perform something healing, financial blessing, whatever, if
• 19:29
  a believer says the right verbal formula often enough, with the
• 19:33
  right level of intensity, and with enough faith.
• 19:35
  The sources are pretty blunt on this.
• 19:37
  Slogans like name it and claim it or speak it into existence.
• 19:40
  Treat God not as a sovereign Father, but as a cosmic servant
• 19:44
  who is limited by human verbal formulas.
• 19:46
  It completely reverses the order of creation and sovereignty.
• 19:50
  It does. The speaker, through their
• 19:52
  words, attempts to generate the power required to obligate God,
• 19:57
  and that is the definition of verbal magic.
• 19:59
  It's the theological twin of the prophets of Baal shouting at
• 20:03
  their God. And Jesus's counter is so
• 20:05
  devastatingly simple. It is the Father already knows
• 20:08
  what you need, so the force of your speech is irrelevant to His
• 20:12
  willingness. He gives according to his
• 20:14
  perfect understanding of what we truly need, not the volume or
• 20:17
  specificity of our demands. That makes the distinction so
• 20:20
  much clearer. The prosperity gospel requires
• 20:23
  exhausting effort in finding the exact powerful words.
• 20:27
  True prayer requires restful trust in the one who already
• 20:30
  knows the need and the solution. But the Gentile error also shows
• 20:34
  up in more subtle institutional ways, like in ritualism and
• 20:37
  legalism. This is when you fall into the
• 20:38
  trap of trusting in the doing of the prayer.
• 20:40
  You know, set formulas, prescribed times, mechanical
• 20:43
  recitation like using counting beads or specific daily quotas
• 20:47
  rather than trusting in the Father's character.
• 20:50
  The internal logic here becomes something like if I press the
• 20:53
  right sequence of spiritual buttons, if I reach the required
• 20:56
  number of prayers per day, then grace will be dispensed
• 20:59
  automatically. It's an exercise in scoring
• 21:02
  spiritual performance. Measuring whether you've earned
• 21:04
  a hearing through precise adherence to form.
• 21:07
  And that functional approach is a kind of baptized form of
• 21:09
  paganism. It assumes that your repetitive
• 21:11
  effort is what breaks through to God, not the simple confidence
• 21:14
  that he hears because of who Christ is.
• 21:18
  When we are consumed by worrying about the length, vocabulary, or
• 21:21
  the emotional intensity of our prayer, we're reintroducing that
• 21:25
  Pagan logic that we have earning hearing.
• 21:28
  And there's one more a final, subtle error within what we
• 21:30
  might call evangelical pragmatism.
• 21:33
  This one can be tricky. It is because it isn't usually
• 21:35
  about verbal magic, but about effort.
• 21:38
  This is the functional belief that God is somehow limited
• 21:42
  until enough prayer releases him to act, or that sheer intensity
• 21:46
  and duration are necessary to secure his attention.
• 21:49
  We've all heard this, haven't we?
• 21:50
  In prayer campaigns, if 1000 people pray for one hour, then
• 21:54
  God will act. Right.
• 21:56
  And while mobilizing prayer is a good thing, the underlying
• 21:58
  theology can be flawed. It can suggest that we're trying
• 22:02
  to push a reluctant or inert deity over the line through
• 22:05
  human effort. Which denies the Father's prior
• 22:09
  knowledge and willingness to act simply because he is good and
• 22:12
  sovereign. It makes God dependent on the
• 22:14
  quantity of human energy. This brings us to a vital
• 22:17
  distinction we have to make, because Jesus clearly commends
• 22:20
  persistence in other places, like the parable of the
• 22:22
  persistent widow. So we need to distinguish
• 22:25
  between babbling and persistence.
• 22:27
  A very key distinction. This is a point of frequent
• 22:30
  confusion for people. If repetitive prayer is Pagan,
• 22:33
  why does Jesus tell that parable of the persistent widow who just
• 22:36
  keeps returning to the unjust judge?
• 22:38
  Because Jesus condemns vain repetition, the Pagan babbling
• 22:43
  that tries to compel a reluctant God through verbal force in a
• 22:46
  single sitting, assuming he's asleep or indifferent.
• 22:50
  That's the salesperson trying to force a closure.
• 22:52
  But Scripture commends persistence, and persistence is
• 22:56
  childlike perseverance that returns to the Father
• 22:58
  repeatedly, not because we doubt his knowledge, but because we
• 23:02
  continually acknowledge our dependence and our confidence in
• 23:05
  him. So the persistent widow wasn't
• 23:07
  trying to change the judge's mind.
• 23:08
  No, she was simply expressing the undeniable reality of her
• 23:12
  need to someone who had the power to meet it.
• 23:14
  She was resting in confidence that he could act.
• 23:17
  So the distinction is in the motive and the object.
• 23:19
  Babbling says I have to breakthrough this barrier using
• 23:23
  my words. While persistence says I rely on
• 23:26
  the Father's goodness, so I will continue to come to Him until He
• 23:29
  in His wisdom acts or directs me otherwise.
• 23:32
  One is an act of compulsion, the other is an act of confident
• 23:35
  dependence. OK, that's really helpful.
• 23:37
  So let's turn this into actionable practice for you.
• 23:40
  For the listener, what are the practical implications for
• 23:43
  personal prayer when we really grasp that the Father already
• 23:46
  knows? I think first we gain the
• 23:48
  freedom to shift from informing God to entrusting our situation
• 23:52
  to God. When you begin your private
• 23:54
  prayer, you can quiet your anxiety right away by just
• 23:58
  acknowledging that God is already fully aware of your
• 24:01
  situation, your feelings, your needs.
• 24:03
  That simple recognition just quiets the pressure to perfectly
• 24:06
  articulate everything. And 2nd, we can hold our request
• 24:10
  with an open hand. Since He is the Father and He
• 24:13
  distinguishes between our, you know, cravings and necessities,
• 24:16
  we submit our desires to His wisdom.
• 24:18
  Our prayer doesn't end with a demand, it ends with a
• 24:21
  submission. You know this need better than I
• 24:23
  do not. My will be yours.
• 24:25
  Be done. And 3rd, we gain freedom from
• 24:27
  the tyranny of sort of spiritual scoring.
• 24:30
  Oh. That's a big one.
• 24:31
  We can resist judging our prayer based on the minutes we spend or
• 24:34
  the emotional intensity we felt. If distraction comes, we don't
• 24:38
  try to compensate by rattling off more words or forcing a
• 24:41
  feeling. We can simply confess our
• 24:43
  weakness to the Father who already knows our frailty.
• 24:46
  That's real freedom. It is.
• 24:47
  So what about corporate prayer? That's where the pressure to
• 24:50
  perform is often the highest. For corporate prayer, the
• 24:53
  implications are just as significant.
• 24:55
  We have to maintain an awareness of the primary audience.
• 24:59
  The prayer being offered is to the Father, not to the human
• 25:02
  listeners. This is the safeguard against
• 25:04
  that religious theater we talked about.
• 25:07
  So how do we do that practically?
• 25:09
  Well, the sources suggest using what they call the solitude
• 25:12
  test. When you prepare for public
• 25:13
  prayer, ask yourself, if I were completely alone with God right
• 25:18
  now, would I talk this way? That's a great question.
• 25:20
  If the language you're about to use is complex or full jargon,
• 25:24
  or maybe it's instructional to the congregation, or it's
• 25:27
  clearly designed to impress the person next to you, then it's
• 25:30
  likely being shaped by a desire for human approval.
• 25:33
  The horizontal error and it's moving away from simple
• 25:36
  communion. So that means aiming for
• 25:38
  clarity, reverence, and warmth over any kind of spectacle in
• 25:41
  public settings. The sources note that keeping
• 25:44
  corporate prayers focused and comparatively simple is actually
• 25:47
  an act of obedience to Christ's teaching, not an act of
• 25:50
  theological immaturity. And it allows the congregation
• 25:53
  to truly follow along and say Amen, rather than being forced
• 25:57
  to endure a theological monologue or a performance.
• 26:00
  So this deep dive brings us to a singular and I think, very
• 26:03
  relieving conclusion. True prayer, grounded in Matthew
• 26:07
  6.738 is neither performance for men nor pressure on God.
• 26:12
  It's simple, honest communication with a Father who
• 26:14
  is omniscient and perfectly willing to hear.
• 26:17
  And the main purpose of Jesus is teaching here is to bring us
• 26:19
  comfort. He's telling us that the
• 26:21
  relationship is secure. We don't have to claw our way
• 26:23
  into the presence of God. We're already invited.
• 26:26
  We don't have to convince him to love us.
• 26:27
  He already does. So we face a choice, really,
• 26:30
  every time we bow our heads, where we adopt the exhausting
• 26:33
  posture of the Gentiles, speaking as if everything
• 26:36
  depends on the cleverness of our words, our volume, our length,
• 26:39
  our eloquence. Or will we rest in the steady,
• 26:42
  knowing character of the one who hears us?
• 26:45
  And because the Father knows what you need before you ask
• 26:47
  Him, the true benefit of prayer is not about getting the
• 26:50
  specific answer we want. It's about the deep change that
• 26:53
  comes from repeatedly, consciously confessing our need
• 26:57
  and our dependence to the One who knows what we need better
• 27:00
  than we know ourselves. The call is clear.
• 27:03
  Fewer empty words and deeper, more confident, childlike faith.
• 27:07
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive on reformed
• 27:09
  thinking. We hope this knowledge frees you
• 27:11
  to pray with restful boldness.