Matthew 6:5-9
Every January, pastors in Brethren in Christ churches are challenged to begin the year with an extra emphasis on prayer both in their private lives and corporately. In fact they suggested that they would like to see all pastors fast the first week of January and spend extra time in prayer. We were also challenged as pastors to do what we could to inspire a greater degree of vigilance in prayer among our congregations. So here at Rosebank we decided we would begin the year with concerted prayer on Tuesday mornings and 7AM, because what matters most in life demands the intervention of God through the moving of the Holy Spirit:
>new birth,
>conviction for sin,
>faith in Christ,
>forgiveness,
>a clean conscience,
>warm hearted devotion to Jesus,
> intensity in worship,
>love for the body of Christ,
>zeal for holiness and purity,
>a clear understanding of Godly justice
>boldness and meekness in witness to unbelievers and fervour for frontier missions — for finishing the work the Lord has given us to do in the world.
These are the important things in life. These are the essentials. But whether I am healthy, or good looking, or accepted by others, or still in the same job, or making lots of money, or having a nice vacation or car or home or clothes or ATV’S or DVD — these things are secondary. And they derive their relative importance from how they relate to the essentials.
Friends, do you realize that none of us, no matter how diligent or smart or good we are, can produce these essentials by yourselves. How many of you here this morning have people you’d like to see commit their lives to Christ in 2007? Can you make them do that?
No! I can’t make the new birth happen, or give faith, or forgive sin, or cleanse the conscience, or make anyone love Jesus, or commit to the church, or be bold and caring in witness. When these things flourish in a church we call it revival or awakening because the Spirit of God is at work giving life where the resources of man have reached their limit.
That is why we begin the year with an emphasis on prayer and fasting. What we are saying is, “We need you God — to do among us and in us what is really essential!”
In a recent survey done among evangelical Baptists 40% admitted they read the Bible fewer than three times a week. 46% said they read the Bible on an average of less than five minutes a day. And 59% do not set aside a daily time for prayer, other than perhaps saying grace at a meal. I’m convinced our results here in Rosebank would not be a great deal different.
Let’s take just a moment to look at Matthew 6:5-9 and then close by walking through the book of Acts to see what happened when the early Christians prayed together. In verse 9 Jesus says, “Pray then like this: Our Father. . .” Verse 11: “Give us this day our daily bread. . .” Verse 12: “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” Verse 13: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
When crafting a summary prayer for his disciples Jesus puts it in a form that will commend it for social or corporate use more than private use. So I see the Lord’s prayer as an invitation not only to pray but to pray together with other believers. There is something self-contradictory about praying with the words “our,” “us” and “we,” but never experiencing the our, us and we in prayer.
Now let’s refine this observation by going back to verses 5-8 and letting each verse make its contribution to our understanding of praying together.
Verse 5:
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward.”
This verse teaches us that praying together must never be motivated by the desire to be admired by other people for our piety or devotion. This verse is not an indictment of praying aloud with other people. The evil of the hypocrite in this verse is the desire to stand out from the group and be exalted above the group for his superior zeal. This is very different from loving those you pray with and wanting to be caught up into a genuine unified togetherness of prayer to the God who is equally Father of each gathered before him in sincere prayer.
One of the values of praying together in fact is that it can cut the root of pride by exposing us to the humility and heart-searching longings that get expressed in the prayers of others. My own prayers have often been reproved and corrected and deepened just by being in a group of godly people of prayer.
In fact I wonder if we should expect our private prayer life to advance in maturity and depth and intensity if we never pray with others who can lift us higher and take us deeper. Wouldn’t that be like expecting a young person to become a gifted conversationalist, but always sending him away to play by himself whenever there was a serious conversation?
So in view of verse 5 praying together is not for the sake of exalting our individual strengths but for the sake of becoming one with the family and helping each other mature in the life of prayer.
Verse 6:
“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
This verse teaches that private prayer is indispensable and that praying together should never take the place of praying in solitude.
Verse 7:
“And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”
This verse teaches us not to let idle, careless talk come out of our mouths when we are praying, and not to think that endless repetitions with many words will somehow constrain God to answer. I assume it is possible to pray all night without falling under the condemnation of “many words” since Jesus prayed all night (Luke 6:12). It’s the empty, mindless repetition that this verse warns against, not the intense and fully engaged pleading with God about something from dozens of fresh angles.
Verse 8:
“Do not be like them (the Gentiles, who multiply empty words), for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
This verse is one of the most encouraging verses you will read in the Sermon on the Mount. God knows what we need before we ask. He’s UP on what’s getting you DOWN. He knows and he says, “Come cast those cares on me, because I care for you.”
So let me sum up now in four sentences what we can say from these four verses about praying together.
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Praying together helps us guard against the individualistic pride that seeks to be admired for outstanding devotion.
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Praying together does not take the place of private prayer; instead they deepen and strengthen each other.
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Praying together helps protect us from carelessness and mindlessness in prayer.
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Praying together reminds us that we are part of a larger family with a Father who knows our needs and loves to meet them.
So I ask in conclusion, Did the early church pray together, and if so what happened when they did? Acts 1:14
After Jesus had ascended to heaven the 11 apostles gathered to pray: “All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” There were about 120 in all and they prayed for about ten days.
The result of this season of praying together was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost described in 2:1-4.
Acts 2:42
After Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, and the conversion of 3,000 people, Luke describes their life together like this: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
The following verse describes the result of this life together: “And fear came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.”
There are so many more examples of prayer we could talk about out of the book of Acts, but let me conclude with one story that I want to encourage you with. I asked earlier how many of you knew someone you would like to see God really touch in 2007.
A few years ago, maybe five, I called our congregation at Sauble to a week of prayer and fasting for people they cared about. We had designed little paper fish with and put names of people we wanted to see come to Christ or get back to Christ on them. The plan was that I would be in the office each morning all that week and people could join me between 7 and 9AM for prayer all week long. One man had never fasted in his entire life, but really felt challenged by God that he was being called to get serious about intercession for his family. He came every morning for a week. By the third day he was moaning and groaning about how awful he felt as his body complained about not being fed. His head was pounding and he felt a little woosey at other times but he was determined to persist. By day four he started to feel better. Every day as we prayed together with others he would pour his heart our for an errant son-in-law who had life had been falling into a bottle. His daughter was thinking seriously of leaving him and taking their three precious little girls with her because dad was never home and when he did come home he wasn’t very nice because he was drunk. Day six and day seven of our prayer times were days of fervent intercession. Our fast ended with a light snack on the Sunday evening. Later that night I was at home and my phone rang. It was this man’s son-in-law. He had been under growing conviction all week long and a sense of paranoia that he was going to loose everything that meant anything to him if he didn’t change. He had not been going to church anywhere and so he called the pastor of the church his father-in-law attended!
We met the next morning in my office and he wept as he told of a bondage that had caused him to loose focus on what really mattered to him and how he was now afraid he was going to lose it all. He had no trouble seeing that he was a sinner in need of a saviour and we prayed together and he was gloriously delivered. He was changed by the awesome incredible power of believing prayer. His own – and the intercession of others that prepared the way for him. Today his wife has a responsible husband who has gone on to be one of the Sauble area’s top entrepreneur’s. His children have a loving dad who comes home sober and is teaching them in by practical example what it means to follow Jesus.
May God help all of us to come to a greater understanding of God’s call to prayer, the privilege of prayer and the power of prayer. That being said, let’s pray!