“The highest activity of the human soul.” That’s what the great expository preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones said about prayer. Prayer is one of the most important things we will ever do in our relationship with the Lord. It is so essential to who we are as Christians that one commentator compared it to breathing. He said, “For Christians prayer is like breathing. You don’t have to think to breathe because the atmosphere exerts pressure on your lungs and forces you to breathe. That’s why it is more difficult to hold your breath than it is to breathe.” I don’t know whether not praying is more difficult than praying is. But I do know that not praying is as hazardous to your spiritual life as not breathing is to your physical life. Not praying will spiritually kill you. But the fact is that sometimes—praying will spiritually kill you. CS Lewis was a brilliant Christian author during the mid-twentieth century. He’s probably most well-known for his Chronicles of Narnia children’s books. But one of my favorite books of his is a book called The Screwtape Letters. Now, the premise of the book sounds really strange. It’s written as a series of letters from an uncle to a nephew. The problem is that they are both demons. The uncle is named Screwtape and he is a very high-ranking demon. The nephew is named Wormwood and is a rookie. And in each letter, Screwtape instructs his rookie nephew on the best ways to tempt his patient. Of course, his patient is a new Christian. It’s a brilliant work that is very insightful and convicting. Interestingly enough, several of the letters deal with prayer. And in not one single case does Screwtape instruct Wormwood to keep his patient from praying. As a matter of fact, sometimes he encourages him to have him pray. He just wants him to pray the wrong way. When Lewis wrote that, he understood something very profound. God created us with a built-in need to pray. It’s almost a basic instinct. Even lost people pray. Even atheists pray. It seems that it is impossible to keep people from praying. So Satan doesn’t even try. But what he does instead is, he works on us to have us pray the wrong way. In one of the fictional letters, Screwtape told Wormwood to get his patient to pray for his mother. That’s a good thing, right? Except he told him that as the patient was praying for his mother, bring certain things to his mind. Bring to mind all the little things she does that annoy him. Bring to mind the annoying way she raises her eyebrow at him. Get him thinking about all of those things he hates about her at the very same time he’s praying for her very soul. Has anything like that ever happened to you? “Lord help me forgive so-and-so. They really hurt me. This is what they did to me. And here’s another thing they did to me.” And before you know it, your mind is full of all the reasons you’re angry and resentful and hurt… and there’s no room for real prayer and forgiveness. Our enemy is clever. He’s been at this a long time. And he wants nothing more than for you to have a completely ineffective prayer life. Oh, he won’t ever make you stop praying. But, if you’re not careful, he’ll trick you into praying with the wrong attitude. That’s what was happening with the people Jesus was talking about in our passage tonight. This is a different occasion than in Luke 11. In the first 4 verses of Luke 11, Jesus’ disciples came to Him and asked Him how to pray. When they asked that, Jesus told them the same thing He had told them in the Sermon on the Mount. He repeated Himself. But here in our passage in the Sermon on the Mount was the first recorded time Jesus said these words. And before He actually gave them what we call the Lord’s Prayer, He gave them the words of warning in our passage. In other words, before He taught them how to pray, He taught them how not to pray. Or to use CS Lewis’ fictional characters, Jesus exposed the lies of Screwtape before He could even use them on his young Christian patient.
We need to be a praying people. But we need to be the right kind of praying people. So, over the next few weeks, I want us to come to this place with one question on our lips. I want us to come to this place asking Jesus, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” And as we do that, the first thing He will teach us is how not to pray. In these verses, Jesus teaches us two ways not to pray. The first way is, don’t pray like a hypocrite. Look back at verses 5-6:
MATTHEW 6:5-6
Don’t pray like a hypocrite. Hypocrite is an interesting word. It’s one of those words that’s brought straight over from the original Greek. It’s used only 17 times in all of the New Testament. And Matthew uses it 13 of those times. And 4 of those times are in the Sermon on the Mount alone. The word itself originally referred to Greek stage actors. In ancient Greek plays, they didn’t have massive set changes like plays today have. They would build a set and pretty much stay with it throughout the whole play. And actors would often play several different parts during a play. In order for the audience to tell the difference between the different characters, the actors would wear different masks for each of their different roles. In one scene, he would come out as one character. The next scene, he would change masks and come out as a completely different character. That actor was referred to as a hypocrite. He was a pretender. He could show any face at any time, depending on the scene around him. But the thing is, none of the masks were who he really was. The hypocrite was never really real. He was always in character. Just like the hypocrites Jesus was referring to in this passage. These people were the truly religious types. They were the ones that everybody wanted to be, but thought they didn’t measure up to. They might have even held them up as examples to their kids. “When you grow up, don’t you want to be like them?” “Don’t you want your prayers to sound like them?” We look on them in a bad light, because we know what Jesus said about their heart. But if you had been walking the streets of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day, you would have thought those people had it going the right way. That’s why this was such a shocking statement by Jesus. Everyone thought these were super spiritual people. They looked up to them. Either they looked up to them, or seeing them caused the people to look down on themselves. But these people were really up there in the eyes of the people. And Jesus called them hypocrites. He called them actors. He called them fake. Why? Because they were praying in order that they might be seen by other people. They were on stage. They were playing a role and they wanted everybody to see how well they did. And Jesus pointed to them and said, “Don’t do it like that.” Jesus told them to remember who their audience is. When you pray, your audience isn’t other people. Your audience is with the King. Picture yourself having an audience with the President of the United States. Here you stand in front of his desk in the oval office. It’s just you and him. You can talk to him about anything that you want. But instead, you find a TV camera in the room and start hamming it up in front of the camera. You do the whole, “Hi Mom” thing. How ridiculous would that be! But that’s exactly what was happening here. That’s exactly what happens when you forget who your audience is when you pray. Some people use this passage to say that we shouldn’t pray in public. If that’s the case, then most people in the Bible violated it. That’s not what it’s saying. It’s saying that whether you pray in private or in public, your attitude needs to be the same. When you pray, you’re in private, close quarters with the Creator of the universe. You are in one-on-one conversation with Him. There is a contemporary Christian song that captures this idea perfectly. It goes like this, “I come on my knees / to lay down before you / bringing all that I am / longing only to know you / seeking your face / and not only your hand / I find you embracing me / just as I am / and I lift these songs / to you and you alone / as I sing to you / in my praises make your home / to my audience of one. Is that how you pray? Whether in public or private, do you pray before an audience of One? Do you pray just to be heard? Do you try to come up with flowery words to impress people? Actually, that’s not really a problem with most people. Here’s what can be a problem though—do you get distracted when you are praying? Do you get distracted and forget Who your audience is? Do you end up just talking to yourself? Do you end up just talking to a spot on the ceiling or a picture of what you think Jesus looks like? Do you end up just talking to an image of God instead of the One, true and living God? When you pray, remember who your audience is. It’s not an image. It’s not a spot. It’s not yourself. It’s not other people. Your audience is the Lord. It is Him and only Him. No matter where you are. No matter who’s around. Don’t pray to be seen of men. That means other people as well as yourself. The first way not to pray is like a hypocrite. The second way is like a heathen. Look at verses 7-8:
MATTHEW 6:7-8
Don’t pray like a heathen. Now here is where Jesus hits a nerve with most of us. If we are honest with ourselves, we’ve all fallen into this trap. The word that’s translated “heathen” here is actually the Greek word “ethnos”. Does that sound familiar? It’s the word we get the word “ethnic” from. It’s translated different ways throughout the New Testament. Sometimes it’s translated “the nations”. Sometimes it’s translated “Gentiles”. Sometimes it’s translated “barbarians”. Sometimes it’s translated like it is here, as “heathen”. The bottom line is, it wasn’t Christians. It wasn’t people who have a good reason to believe that someone will answer their prayers. It wasn’t people who had a good idea of who they were talking to. It was people who prayed more out of superstition or ritual than anything. Have you ever heard the prayers of other religions? Hindus have what is called a mantra. As they perform various positions of yoga… by the way, yoga is not an exercise program… yoga is practicing Hindu religion. But as a Hindu performs their different yoga positions, they will repeat a self-improvement phrase over and over again. It’s their mantra. And they believe that when their mind becomes blank enough, that mantra will sink into their subconscious and they will achieve it. If you ever hear a Muslim pray… by the way, this entire month is Ramadan, the month of fasting and prayer for Muslims. If you drive by their mosque on 460 after dark, you will notice their parking lot is full. All month long, they gather there each evening to break their Ramadan fast. But if you ever hear a Muslim pray, they repeat the same phrases over and over. No matter what religion throughout history, pagan prayers are always like that. They’re like that, because they are impersonal. They are superstitious. So, if that’s the case, why in the world would we try to pray to a personal God that way? Can you imagine talking to your spouse the way we talk to God? If you used the same words and phrases over and over again? If you started every conversation the same way and ended it the same way? It wouldn’t be very much of a conversation, would it? And if the conversation was that bad, it wouldn’t speak much of the relationship, would it? Now, granted, when you are praying in public, it’s difficult to avoid repetition. And I don’t think that Jesus is saying that all repetition is bad. But if you’re just saying words that are so repetitive that they’ve lost all meaning to you, it is bad. If you’re just saying words out of sheer habit, it is bad. If that’s the pattern you find yourself in, prayer has become heathen-like. There are two things you need to avoid to keep your prayers from being like heathen prayers. First, you need to make sure you’re not using your words to try and manipulate God. Now, I’ll tell you right off that I don’t pretend to have this all figured out. I do know that there can come a point where asking for the same thing over and over can be too much. It can go from a genuine, humble petition to trying to twist God’s arm into doing something He’s told you He’s not going to do. Paul was wise enough to know that he should only pray three times for the thorn to be removed from his side. He only prayed three times and had a sure sense that God would not remove it. So he quit asking. But there are other times where he says that he prays constantly and continually for things. So, when does repetition become heathen-like? When it becomes an attempt to get God to do something He’s already said He’s not going to do. When it becomes an attempt to manipulate God. So, make sure you’re not trying to manipulate God. Also make sure your words are not used out of superstition. I have heard people get so hung up on individual words in prayer that they have become superstitious. “If you don’t always follow the ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) formula, God won’t answer your prayers.” “If you don’t use King James English in your prayer, it’s not reverent enough.” “If you don’t always address your prayer to God the Father, He won’t answer.” You might not get hung up on those, but here’s one you probably have gotten hung up on: “If you don’t always say the words, ‘In Jesus’ name’ at the end of your prayer, it’s not real prayer.” Did Jesus say we’re supposed to pray in His name? Of course He did. Was He talking about using those specific words like some magic formula? Are we supposed to say, “In Jesus’ name” almost like a magician uses the word, “Abracadabra”? Of course not. Praying in Jesus’ name means that we pray in line with the will of Jesus. It means that we submit our will and desires to Him. It means that as we wear His name as Christians, we pray in His name as well. Not out of superstition—out of submission. Keep your prayers from being like heathen prayers by not trying to manipulate God. And keep your prayers from being like heathen prayers by not using words superstitiously.
OK, so we’re not supposed to pray like a hypocrite. We’re supposed to remember who our audience is when we pray. Remember that we have an audience of only One. It doesn’t really matter what other people think of our prayers. It’s not their conversation. It’s your conversation with the Lord. He is your audience—no one else. We’re not supposed to pray like a hypocrite and we’re not supposed to pray like a heathen. You don’t use vain repetition to try and manipulate God. God is God and you’re not. Prayer is a conversation based on a personal relationship. And relationships aren’t manipulative. We don’t use vain repetition to try and manipulate God and we don’t use vain repetition as some sort of superstition. There is nothing magic in your words. There are no magic incantations or formulas. Your words of prayer are privileged communications to a high and holy God.
Well, that’s great. Now you know how not to pray. But I want you to notice the first 6 words of verse 6: “After this manner therefore pray ye.” Praying like a hypocrite and praying like a heathen—that just addresses your attitude. But this is the command—“pray ye.” How is your prayer life tonight? Are you just praying out of habit? Are you just praying out of obligation? Are you just praying to get your needs met? Or are you praying out of a desperate longing to communicate with the One you love? With the One who loves you? With the One who gave His life to have a relationship with you? With the One who by His grace provided a way for you to boldly approach the throne? If there was ever a time when God’s people needed to pray—it’s now. Are you?
