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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Matthew 6:7-8
Well this morning we Pick up from Matthew 6 again as we're heading toward the Lord's Prayer. Next week we'll begin and we'll work through the Lord's Prayer really line by line petition by petition. And there though we're still considering a prayer we're really moving away from the topic of prayer and looking at the content of the Lord's Prayer which Happens to sprawl and encompass all sorts of things from not only the sermon on the mount but the larger theological themes of Scripture and of redemption and so I hope you have a sense of Anticipation as we make our way toward that this is like all of Scripture you get the sense of narrative.
There's pathways that are part of the journey of understanding and then you get to certain clearings or vistas where you start to see this this gorgeous sense of the landscape and when we come to the Lord's Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount some would argue that's the very center of The Sermon on the Mount and so perhaps we are heading through this pathway toward this clearing where we can get a sense of The beauty of all that we've been through and all that lies ahead and so again even this this week as you consider where we are in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount have that sense of anticipation and get ready to do a deep dive in the Lord's Prayer.
But before we get there, we want to spend some time in the second part of what Jesus has to say about prayer. Remember that all of chapter 6 began with a warning take heed. Jesus in chapter 5 had spoke about the exceeding righteousness that those who belong to his kingdom must have if your Righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees by no means will you enter the kingdom Jesus warns?
Knowing that seeking and striving after this exceeding righteousness not a righteousness that satisfies Externally but something that is true within at the deepest resonance of who we are as disciples there's an integrity a purity what we're looking at on Sunday evenings a true heart of being his disciples and Jesus knows that therefore as we're striving in this way, there's a danger potholes ditches of both legalism and hypocrisy on either side of this pursuit and chapter 6 really begins with a warning against these things as we saw and of course last week we Spoke a little bit about prayer.
Jesus said beginning in verse 5 when you pray you shall not be like the hypocrites. The immediate reference would be that the scribes and the Pharisees from chapter 5. Those that love the best places in the synagogues The the corners of the street that have the best public show and they make a great pretense in their prayers.
They they trumpet attention to themselves in the way that they address God and in so far as they do this They're not praying to God. They're essentially praying to the ears of men and Jesus says don't be like that.
And here as we'll see Prayer is to be to the father. He says pray to your father who is in the secret place your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. So as we saw toward the end of chapter 5 Jesus is shifting our attention to the heavenly father.
Jesus wants to explain How his disciples his followers his students? Should understand his father relate to his father who is in heaven their father who is in heaven. Jesus says when you pray pray to your father your father who sees now.
We spent some time last week talking about prayer in this way. We said private prayer secret prayer shapes all prayer and Private prayer shapes our approach to God. Of course before that can happen before prayer can shape our approach to God.
God must first approach us and he has done that praise God by sending his son into the world to take the place.
That we.
Could not take a life of perfect righteousness and full obedience to the law of God and then to die the death that we Deserved standing in our place Even in agony on the tree at Golgotha. And then sending the spirit so that we would not be left Destitute or on our own to try to muster up the faith that we need to live the Christian life but rather to have an advocate a helper one who empowers us and guides us to the very presence of God the Holy Spirit who As we saw last week engages our hearts to be able to cry Abba Father.
And so it all begins with the reception of the Spirit of God who draws us to the Son who brings us to the Father. And The moment that new birth begins when the Spirit is received into the heart of a believer that that Immediate cry.
Just like for those of you who have witnessed a birth It's sort of the the child comes out of the birth canal and there's sort of this moment where you're waiting Anticipating that cry. And and finally the first sound the first time you hear that cry.
And in terms of the spiritual birth That cry is father.
Abba Father.
Now you are a son now you are a daughter of the Living God. You have now the spirit of adoption Which is also the spirit of prayer. The hypocrite is a spiritual orphan.
The.
Hypocrite prays to the ears of men. Does not know the Heavenly Father and cannot pray to him as such. Neither can a slavish spirit one that's in bondage one that has a dread fear of the judge. Pray to God as a heavenly father.
He is the one who's above all. That's pretty that's a pretty scary concept and he's a distant though powerful judge. And I better muster up all sorts of prayers to try to appease him. And so in the same way the hypocrite is a spiritual orphan.
So to one who has a spirit of bondage and fear is a spiritual orphan. Neither can know God as a heavenly father. Neither can cry out to God as a son or a daughter. And so we see that in Christ God has become our father.
He's adopted us in the beloved one and therefore everything has changed. We pray to the one now that we know is our father the one who sees. We pray to the one who's always renewing his mercy morning by morning loves us with an everlasting love.
Even when we're faithless he is faithful. And having become God's children we realize God's children need spiritual help especially in prayer. And so Jesus seeks to give us that help to give us that aid and instruction.
Well this morning in verses 7 and 8 we see just that as Thomas Boston who I mentioned last week the great Puritan He said whenever the grace of God touches the hearts of believers. They're set a praying.
However, they're in it, but like children who begin to speak they babble on like toddlers. They don't know what to pray. They don't know how to ask for it in a way that fits them for the court of heaven.
And so Jesus is teaching his disciples. Here's how you are to pray so that you're not babbling like toddlers. But rather you're being fit for the very court of heaven in the way you relate to God your heavenly father.
Well that babbling like toddlers is really what we see in verse 7 when you pray Jesus says don't use vain. Repetitions you could translate that vain babblings or rattles. Vain repetitions as the heathen do as the Gentiles do for they think that they'll be heard for their many words.
Therefore do not be like them. Your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. So remember in verses 5 and 6 Jesus warns against praying for the ears of men. Okay, we've got that. We've avoided the the hypocrite the one who has no real heart for God.
It's all a show. It's all a performance before the ears of men. But what about those who actually genuinely do pray to God even they have to be aware that there's a tendency To think that somehow our performance even if it's not to the ears of men.
But somehow it's a performance to the ears of God is what makes prayer answerable. My prayer will be heard because of how elaborate my performance is if I keep repeating the same thing if I make an elaborate show.
If I find all sorts of adjectives and synonyms to sort of make and intensify my prayer. Then I'll be heard and if I don't do that Then I'm less likely to be heard and Jesus warns against this. Even if you're praying to God in a sincere way you stay you still may be praying amiss.
So Jesus says when you pray don't use vain repetitions like the heathen. They think they'll be heard for their many words. So we're shifting away from the Scribes and the Pharisees and now that the Gentiles are in view the pagan.
How do Gentiles pray. How did the heathen pray. Or what we know from the first century is very often they would repeatedly invoke the names of their guns and They would have set phrases sometimes cultic phrases that they would continually recite.
You get the same sense of the showdown at Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal there. They're leaping around lancing themselves and making this great show. They think the more intense we are the more that we're repeating and crying out the same things the more likely that Baal will hear us.
It's the same thing. We know from Greco-Roman culture. They would invoke the names of the gods. They thought that they're rattling off all of these things would eventually turn the ear and thus the favor of their gods.
They think as Jesus says the more words they have the more likely their prayers are to be received. Now Jesus it on the face of it. Jesus seems to be saying don't have lengthy prayers. That's a wrong understanding of this passage.
And when you go to the Lord's Prayer, we shouldn't think that every prayer Should be as as short and distilled and concise as the Lord's Prayer. Scripture itself contains many prayers that are much longer than that Jesus himself prays lengthy prayers.
We read Mark 1 as an example you read in Luke 6 that Jesus prayed on one occasion through the night. And so you have many examples. Jesus prayed all night. You have great prayers like Nehemiah and Ezra you have tremendous prayers that are recorded to us in full and you get the sense that Jesus isn't against Lengthy prayers, but he is against hollow prayers.
This is a warning against the kind of repetition that isn't going anywhere. It virtually becomes gibberish. It becomes a mantra. We should also say there's a difference between repeated prayers and repetitious prayers.
There's difference between the prayers that you pray often. Versus the thing that you pray continually within a prayer, right? Jesus is not against repeated prayer. You think of the Apostle Paul. He says three times I prayed for this thorn to be removed that that wasn't Repetitious prayer that was hollow.
He was praying because the thorn was still there and he's saying please remove it. And when we have those thorns pressing into our life We'll find that we often have repeated prayers. And of course that's encouraged in Scripture.
You think of Luke 18 with the the widow that is persistent. That's the idea of repeated prayer. So Jesus warns against hollow repetitious prayer vain repetition not against lengthy prayer not against repeated prayers.
The idea is that a hollow prayer a prayer that emphasizes the performance of the prayer itself Is something that his disciples must avoid. This is the type of prayer that goes on and on and on and on and never really goes anywhere at all.
It's like wheels spinning on ice something we've all experienced over the past week. I'm sure. There's a lot of bluster and sound and movement, but it's not going anywhere. Jesus says don't pray like that.
The the the pagans the Gentiles they would have these petitionary formulas that have these unintelligible words We have books of essentially curses or or magical sayings certain rituals, especially mystery religions.
Used all sorts of.
Incantations that were thought to somehow give the prayer some sort of manipulative power or ability Over the God as they invoked the God or over others that they were praying or speaking for or against Jesus is warning against this understanding of prayer.
It's not a magic spell. It's not something that emphasizes the one who is praying. All of the emphasis on prayer as we'll see is About the God who hears the prayer the God who therefore answers prayer according to his will.
That's the emphasis of prayer. So prayer is not heaped up phrases idle repetitions. That doesn't give you a percentage point of the probability of an answer. The Gentiles think they will be heard. That's what Jesus says.
That's a that's a passive construction. Most likely a divine passive. In other words, they think God will hear them. They think they will be heard. They think God will hear them. Because they're cobbling together words and they're repeating the same thing over and over again.
And you have to understand what this is all about. Why would a pagan pray in this way? Well, what we know about the pagan gods is they're they're arbitrary.
They're capricious.
You read Greek mythology or Roman mythology get the sense that the gods were like cranky toddlers. And you just had to constantly keep appeasing them. You never knew what you were gonna get. Are they angry?
Are they happy? They're very fickle. They're a lot like us projected into the sky, which is exactly what they were. The idea is we have to constantly sort of keep them at bay keep them distracted keep them attentive keep them appeased.
Because they could be angry in but a moment. They're very fickle in the way that they interact with us. They're very aloof and distant unless we're constantly calling upon them to hear us. Jesus says well, this is not what my father is like in heaven.
He's not capricious. He's not arbitrary. He's not aloof. He's not distant. And so don't think that babbling away is something that draws his attention. He's the God who sees all things knows all things.
Don't think that somehow cobbling up phrases will garner his attention or his favor. Don't think in other words that he is the kind of God you can control. That's the key. That's the key. Pagans prayed in this way.
Gentiles prayed in this way because they sought a way to control the things that they were praying for. You get the right incantation you say it enough times you you address or lance or dance around all night the altar and.
Somehow you can control the outcome. You can somehow garner a harness the answer. Jesus is saying this is not what the father is like. He is not one that you can manipulate by your many words. He is not one who is controlled by your incantations.
Whether you pray a very concise childlike prayer or pray through the night and dance around the altar. You're not manipulating or controlling the outcome of the prayer. God does whatever he pleases. Now why is control the key?
Again Jesus is pointing to sincere prayer not vain prayer not hollow prayer. But sincere prayer a Puritan put it this way. God doesn't measure prayers so much as he weighs them. It's a good way to think about it.
Might be a very short prayer. That's the most meaningful the most we could say weighty prayer. Pagan repetitions are not prayers of worship. They're not prayers of adoration. They're not prayers of gratitude so much as self-centered.
Self-directed prayers that are trying to control the outcome. Jesus says don't pray like that. Don't pray as. Though your repetition your performance your self-centered desires can manipulate the outcome of prayer.
That's not why you pray. That's certainly not how you pray. But but why would you seek to pray in that way? Why does Jesus have to warn his disciples not to pray like the pagans do? Unless it was a real threat a real likelihood that his disciples would be tempted to pray in this way.
It begs the question Why would we seek to control the outcome of our prayers? What would drive that? What do we pray about the most when when do you pray the most heartily. When do you pray with the most weight sometimes with the most length sometimes with the most repetition.
It's when you have tremendous needs and worries fears anxieties trials in your life. Doesn't that drive Repetitious weighty prayer and you're desperate to try to fixate on the outcome of it. And you think somehow because I'm praying so intensely so repeatedly that I will be heard.
Somehow God would otherwise be distant. He would not hear he would not answer but look how much I'm praying now. He's sure to answer in this way. Jesus says don't don't approach prayer in that way. But that doesn't mean that God's aloof to your needs and your worries.
In fact everywhere Jesus is going in this chapter He's about to address all of the worries and needs that we have. He'll do it in verse 8 as we'll see in a moment. He'll do it in verses 30 through 31 32 we'll say God knows what you need.
Don't worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow worry about itself. Why these are the things that compose our prayers as Christians? That's why when we get to verse 8 Jesus moves away from the control that we would seek in prayer.
To the care of the Heavenly Father. It's very important. We see that that transition Jesus goes from the kind of concern the kind of care that drives vain hollow. Repetitious prayer that is self-centered ultimately self-directed and seeks to control the outcome and rather he Encourages us to pray in a way that we're entrusting ourselves to the care of the Heavenly Father vital that you see that.
It may not actually change much of the content of your prayer. But it entirely changes your motivation and your end in prayer. The father is not distant. He's not aloof. He's not under the thumb of our vain repetitions.
But he's also not arbitrary. He's not capricious. Jesus says don't be like the Gentiles and here's why you don't have to be like them. Your father knows the things you need before you even ask him. You see what Jesus is saying there?
You don't have to think that somehow your performance is what gains God's attention. He already is your Heavenly Father. He knows what you're needing before you're even praying to him. Therefore you don't have to have vain prayers.
You don't have to think that somehow if you intensify your prayer performatively that you can control the outcome. You don't have to be like that not because of who you are or what you're up against but because of who God is.
That's why you don't have to pray like the Gentiles. God's children don't need to rattle off repetitions. God is not hard of hearing. God does not have a short attention span. He is our heavenly father again.
Notice everything is is like a stream going toward this ocean of the fatherhood of God. You parents you can imagine. What little difference it would make when lunchtime is approaching? For the child to come in.
With these long-winded elaborate petitions. You're cooking regardless, you know that a meal is needed. You know, it's that time of day. You're preparing it you have every intention of preparing it. It does not change your slightest intention for the child to come into the kitchen.
Oh mother. Oh Great mother how famished I am. Oh, I am famished. I am famished. I am it's like settle down.
I know what you need.
This is not gaining you anything. The outcome is fixed. I already know what you need. All these repetitions aren't making any. It's like being in a car on a road trip. Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? You're not getting there any faster. Your vain repetitions are accomplishing nothing. You'd be like Trump to Zelinsky, you know, you've done enough talking. That's enough. Our father knows our needs already.
Jesus says. That should fundamentally change the way that we pray. I'm not informing God of something. He doesn't already know. He already knows what I need before I even ask. He knows better than I what I need.
Before I ask I might ask amiss. I Might vainly repeat all the things that would not be good for me. I think they're pressing needs. He knows better. What do my vain repetitions accomplish them? Our father knows our needs already.
But the problem is as believers were prone to enter into prayer with minds that are already Entangled with the anxieties of the world the pressures the vicissitudes of life. We have hearts that are disrupted by our affections our passions those powerful feelings and emotions because of the things that we're experiencing the things that we're fearful of and those begin to rock us around like winds and waves and we find that we sort of protect ourselves and so we become very Very self-centered we our world becomes very small.
It fuels the winds and the waves and we become very cold and distant toward God. We're no longer entrusting ourselves to his providential care. We're rather consumed as we wander through all of the worries and concerns that we're facing.
We find that all of the priorities of faith fall out of order. We're not we're no longer relating to God our heavenly father our King as though he is in control of all things. We no longer can understand why Jesus is saying to his disciples.
Don't worry. Don't worry. It's like one of the hardest commandments to follow, isn't it? Don't worry. Jesus commands us not to worry and and this is part of how we are not to worry right here in Matthew 6 verses 7 and.
8.
We tend to pray as believers against the very things that God is giving us in his mercy. We seek things that are actually harmful to us. We chase after the objects that are really more a result of our flesh than of the Spirit.
And then we fail to actually pray for what we truly need. If we could see things as God sees things. The things that are formative for us. The things that will actually get us to the verge of Jordan. Those are the things that we don't ask for in prayer.
John Owen.
Said for a soul to know its wants and infirmities in other in other words its needs and its weaknesses is a heavenly discovery. When someone is walking in the Spirit of God It is a heavenly discovery to know truly what your soul needs and truly what your weaknesses are.
This is something the worldling cannot know. This is something the the prayer on the street corner. The the trumpet in the synagogue has no interest to discover. This is someone who's bent on trying to procure an outcome.
Will not have the humility to actually receive This discovery of what are my real needs? What are my real weaknesses and I approach God in light of those things. What a comfort it is to know our father already knows what we need.
Jesus says your father knows what you need before you ask him God's knowledge of our needs or aren't just stated here by Jesus. We find this throughout Scripture that this constant Recalling of God's provision the God who faithfully provides for his people.
He didn't bring them out of Egypt so that they would waste away in their wandering. He faithfully provides manna by the day He gives them the protection of the cloudy pillar in the fire by night God as we see in Isaiah 65 before my people call I will answer them.
Is that a way you think about prayer for a genuine need a heavenly discovered need as you're saying father? The answer is already on the way.
He knows.
To pray in that way to be able to say amen and let it be an amen. Rather than trying to muster up some sort of outcome. And so again, all of this is fixating on the transition from control that we seek in prayer.
To rather aligning ourselves to the care of the Heavenly Father. God's people don't need pagan hollow repetitious prayer. Because God's people know that we serve a God who cares a God who sees a God who knows a God who hears a God who answers according to perfect wisdom.
According to perfect Providence in Such a way that there won't be a jaunt an iota at the end of history of any charge that he has done. Almost everything. Well, all of his people drop to their knees and say Lord you have done all things.
Well. At my walk I would have changed a hundred things a hundred times until I see things as you see it. I wouldn't want to change anything at all. That's the kind of care we entrust ourselves to. That's the kind of care Jesus says should motivate the way that we pray.
A Loving father who knows what we need. Who responds to the prayers of his people because of who he is not because of what we're doing. Very important that we understand this. The previous verses Jesus says when you pray go into your room.
When you've shut your door pray to your father. Your father who sees in secret. And now we're pressing into verses 7 and 8 the father who sees is the father who cares. He sees because he cares. He hears because he loves.
This is the father that we're praying to. He's not like the you know the the French devised these prison systems the Panopticon and the idea is every cell was sort of in a circle or a semicircle around the all-seeing eye.
It was behind Mirror glass so you had no idea if you were being surveilled at that moment or not but the idea was your your cell was directly in the line of sight and it ended up causing all sorts of Psychological distress.
The idea was there's nothing you can do that is hidden. Everything is seen by this eye. That's not the father who sees. He's not the panopticon of dread. His affections are not as cold and sterile as glass.
He's the heavenly father who knows the needs that he'll provide for faithfully. Jesus is gonna draw us toward this in the Sermon on the Mount. Who feeds the sparrows of the air. I'm sure that some pigeons get fed by some well and intended, you know people in the parks in New York.
But not all the pigeons get fed that way. Who feeds the birds of the air. Who close the fields. Who gives the regularity of? The seasons turning. Who feeds the children of men? God and his faithfulness.
Causing rain to fall on both the just and the unjust. This is the father that we pray to. We see a father that Sees and loves. You remember Hagar in Genesis when she's on the run and she's thinking I'm either gonna die in Abrams house.
I'm gonna die in the desert, but I'm gonna die either way. So I might as well be on the run and she comes to that. Well, she names it after the event there. She names it the sort of well of the God who sees me.
She says, you know, have I seen the one who sees me? She knows Comprehensively I have been seen by God.
Comprehensively.
The God who sees you think of Nathanael under the fig tree. When you were there praying Nathanael, I saw you. We have no idea. That's how intimate that relation. We have no idea Why that caused Nathanael to break out in worship to Jesus as the Messiah, but that's what he does.
Truly you are God. Truly you are the Son of God. You think of the intimacy at John 4 of the woman at the well. And when Jesus says, oh you've spoken rightly Man, you currently have is in your husband.
Now you have many husbands and they had this little exchange about the hope of the Samaritans versus the hope of the Jews. And what does she do? She runs back to the village. She says I've just met a man who told me everything I ever did.
Now she wasn't at the well that long. The whole idea was intuitively she knew if he knows this about me. He knows everything.
And.
She didn't cower back. She didn't slink back and say the all-seeing eye. The the dread judge of all knows everything I've ever done. Let me tell you about him. She came back with joy. He knows everything.
He knows everything about me. That's the kind of knowledge that Jesus says belongs to his disciples. The father sees everything he knows everything before I say anything that I'm struggling with. Before I say anything that's hurting me.
He's seen it all. He knows it better than I know it myself. Things. I can't articulate. He's able to unravel. He's able to comprehend what I can't piece and hold together. He does. Providentially when I have no idea what to do or how to go.
He has a spirit that is faithfully guiding me along a path that he has prepared beforehand. Jesus says your father who sees is your father who cares. Your father who knows what you need. What a comfort that is again how radically that should shift the way that we pray.
But I don't. I fear that we don't pray with that simplicity. We don't fear we don't pray with that simple motivation. We don't pray with that objective or toward that end and This is where the challenge of Jesus teaching on prayer should hit us the hardest.
If it's true that prayer shapes our approach to God a point made last week. Then it is likewise true that our approach to God shapes the way that we pray another point we made last week. Could it be? Could it be?
That we misunderstand and misapply the sovereignty of God. God's providence. God's control over everything that occurs in this world and somehow. Our understanding of God's sovereignty short-circuits the way that we pray.
None of us would actually utter the words if God's in control of all things. Why bother praying? We would never say that. But subtly practically we may live and approach God as if we should say. Well God's in control.
Why even bother praying at all? Jesus is not saying my disciples pray like fatalists. My disciples pray some prayer knowing there they have no control whatsoever. God will do whatever he wants and they just sort of have to surrender themselves to that fact.
That's not what Jesus is saying. He's not saying c 'est la vie and God's gonna do what he wants. Just don't pray vainly. That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying when you pray know that the Father knows you he sees you knows everything about you.
He cares for you. He's gonna provide for you. He's gonna give to you what you need even if you have no idea that you need it. Even if it's a hard thing that you need he'll be faithful to you. Entrust yourself to his care pray to him as the God who sees and cares.
Don't pray to him as a God who you can manipulate but also don't think therefore he's arbitrary or distant or cold or threatening. Pray to him as God who knows all. And If he had to prove his love for you, he did it by sending his own son pray to him in that way.
The Lord shows us how weak and needy we are. Not so that we'll turn in on ourselves and try to control things. But so that will fully entrust ourselves to his sovereign care and prayer is the vehicle for us to do that.
I'm convinced in the Reformed world that we short-circuit. This kind of praying because we misunderstand and misapply what the sovereignty of God means practically. I End up praying more like formulaic prayers.
Because I just feel like well, whatever is gonna happen is what's gonna happen. And you know, I know that God will work it all out. And it's just a short-circuited way where I'm not allowing prayer to develop my faith my ability to entrust myself to the father's care.
And when you entrust yourself to the father's care you start to participate you understand where he's going. You start to open your mind. Why have you done this? Oh now I can see why this thorn is in my side.
Thank you father. This is a good gift. No, it's very painful in the moment. If you're not praying in this kind of way of entrusting yourself to the father's care God becomes very distant and your prayers become very cold.
And then you're right back to verses 5 6. Prayers just for show you're just a hypocrite. The Lord does not command prayer for his sake as though he needed it. That should tell us a lot about prayer.
God has Designated prayer for our sake. It does not change his providential will. It changes his people. It changes the way we're understanding his will his providence in our lives. It changes the way we participate in it rather than resist it.
It changes our heart our affections. It begins to soften our will. It changes our sense of how the world is a lot bigger than us and God's kingdom. Has a much larger objective than my comfort and my felt needs.
And yet. At every moment. I see his fatherly care to provide for my comforts and my felt needs. And so you ask yourself does your faith curl its fingers around the character and promises of God when you pray.
To the degree you're not entrusting yourself to the father's care when you pray. I would argue you've misunderstood or misapplied something about who you're praying to and why you're praying to begin with.
There's a subtle way that our prayer shifts from addressing God and trusting ourselves to his care and it begins to subtly Focus on our own practice. The attention shifts from object to performance. Well, I've been doing really good this week praying.
Been really good. I've been praying really heartily in the season of my life very intensely. People have actually noted how eloquent my prayers have become. They've even been moved by it. I'm convinced I have the gift of prayer.
Surely, it's this gift that has caused all of these and you know, what you really need is just me to pray for you all of a sudden the performance becomes the object of prayer and. And you're no different than a Gentile who thinks that's why they're heard it's because of how they're performing.
That's what makes a difference in hearing prayer. You know if this isn't clicking let me give you a variation. I didn't earn my place to pray to God. I need to clean up things first. That's thinking like a Gentile that's thinking like a pagan.
Maybe that one hits closer to home. I really blew it this week. I I Have no business praying to God. I should just throw up some sort of Quick hollow prayer because I should pray but really I can't really pray until I get things together that then I'll be able to pray.
And part of that is I don't even want to pray. How can I pray? You should approach Psalm 51 with new eyes if that's how you react. To falling into temptation falling prey to the snares of the evil one.
When David is fully engulfed in sinful rebellion against God His instinct is to cry out. It's an amazing thing. It's an amazing thing. He doesn't slink away for three weeks and try to get his acts together.
He just cries out for mercy. The issue again is control. We want to control the outcome. Well, I don't want to pray because. Not only have I not earned a place to pray as if you could ever earn a place to pray.
But if I pray now, he might zap me and it's like, okay. All right. Now you're sorry and now I'm going to zap you. Do you see this is how pagans think about the gods capricious arbitrary? Not ultimately for their for their good not ultimately ones who hear and care for them.
Jesus says when you pray you're praying to your father in heaven who knows what you need who cares for you. That's what Jesus says should drive your prayers. The issue is control. Control we're not willing to relinquish control we're seeking because we feel that we don't have it.
Trial comes into life and you have no sense of control and That causes you to sort of panic and you begin to have these repetitious prayer. I got a really really pray. Why I got to get control over this somehow.
Or maybe you just say I'm not even gonna pray at all. I'm just gonna kind of see where the waves take me because God seems so distant in this trial. It's something that when you're a young person you're a teenager, especially you you have this sense of invincibility.
It's somehow you feel impermeable. Nothing can throw me the world is my oyster. I'm gonna control all sorts of things. I want to accomplish in life. You scroll social media and you find all these, you know, I look at all these people working nine-to-fives.
I went surfing today, you know, I controlled my destiny. It's like I'm gonna do that too as if you can. And you grow up and you start to realize that sense of invincibility. It has to fade and blessed are you if it fades young in life?
You start to realize how much you cannot control in life. The thing that aches the pains that you feel like. They don't just go away like when you're in your 20s. You're like it went away. This is great.
You go to the doctor and they go you're in the golden triangle of health. I mean, I don't. I don't have to see you for five years.
This is great.
And then those pains and those aches and those dysfunctions they they start to stick around and you realize oh. This isn't going to go away. In fact, this is going to get worse. And now I have to live through this.
And now you have a I'm not in control of this. I can't control the outcome of this and then relationships break down trials happen. Soar afflictions and you realize that I really have no control over this.
Twice scripture says it's good to bear the yoke in your youth. What a powerful and that's from lamentations to you. What a powerful image that is. What's the yoke? What is a yoke? I think in the context the yoke is affliction.
Hardship trial.
And lamentations are saying it's it's good to face hard things when you're young. It's good to let that Bubble of control pop when you're young and to realize what life is really like and the world is not your little oyster.
It's a very powerful mysterious incomprehensible thing that you have to navigate your life through.
The yoke is a perfect image for that because a yoke is something you put on an animal who has its own will and wants to go in a certain direction and The yoke is the thing that prevents it from being able to do any of that.
The yoke says it doesn't matter what your will is. You're going here. It doesn't matter what you do or don't want to do this is what it's going to be like and Lamentations is saying it's good. If you have to bear a yoke like that when you're young it'll pay.
It'll pay interest in due time as you grow older. You'll be all the wiser for it. And notice what's connected to that in the context of lamentations 3. The Lord is good to those who wait for him and it's going to be repeated.
That's the emphasis to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the Lord and here we find it's good For a man to bear the yoke in his youth Let him sit alone and keep quiet because God has laid it on him.
You see what lamentations is saying. It's good when you've learned you are not in control. It's good when you have learned that all the vain repetitions and intensity and things that I'm mustering up Performatively aren't actually affecting the outcome of this.
This is a yoke that God has laid on me. Therefore I will sit and be quiet and wait on the salvation of the Lord. That's what lamentations is saying but you shouldn't think of that sitting and being quiet as being covered in sackcloth and ashes and Somehow mourning and in this gloom or for three years give me the state of gloom because of the verses we read even before that of the joy and the Celebration of the God who is faithfully provided and therefore will always faithfully provide.
But you realize in that season where you're quiet and you know This is the yoke of God and I have no control over it. You're waiting on him and Jesus says your prayer life should reflect that entrust yourself to the one who cares.
Your father knows I.
Hope this is an encouragement to someone but if you've been waiting in God for a long season of prayer Sometimes waiting is the answer to your prayer. We lose heart because we don't want to wait and God says wait on me.
How can you wait on God in this way? You have to relinquish that your performance. Doesn't manipulate the outcome and at the same time you have to recognize my father in heaven knows he knows where I am.
He knows how I'm feeling. He knows the pain that I'm carrying. No one else can see it. He knows the hollow Emptiness the loneliness he knows it all he knows it. Therefore I can wait on him. Luther. Martin Luther said prayer is the soul sweating.
He loved bought bodily emissions. What an image that is though? Prayer is your soul sweating. Sweating. This is just the overflow. Why do you sweat because of something intense something may be fearful and Luther says that's just prayer is soul sweat not the most flattering image of prayer, but you get you get the point.
There's there's something At the very core of prayer that is about depending upon God at the basic roots of my desires and my needs and my fears. And we seek all sorts of ways in life to harness and control those things.
I don't want this. I need this instead. I can't go on if I don't have this and prayer is no. Entrust yourself to the Father's care. Don't be like the pagans don't be like the prophets of Baal. Don't be like the world that tries to find a dozen other ways to manipulate and control their the hard things in their life.
What else can you turn to when things get difficult? What else could you turn to? It's good to bear the yoke in your youth. It's good to learn the secret of entrusting yourself to God for your daily bread and For your darkest affliction.
You're entrusting yourself to God comprehensively. Father I am in your hands father. I am at your disposal. You begin as we saw several weeks ago to have adoration and gratitude for the the most mundane things in your life.
And that reinforces your trust for the most difficult things in your life.
Why?
Because your father knows. Your father knows. What does Peter say he says? Humble yourselves Casting all your care upon him. Why? For he cares for you first. Peter 5 7. Notice how this is all held together.
Humble yourselves. That's the command and there's a participle here humble yourselves Casting all your care upon him. Why. Because he cares for you. Notice that Peter is not giving two commands here. This is easily missed, but he's not giving two commands.
He's not saying humble yourselves as command number one and cast all your cares on God as command number two. That's not what he's doing. Subtle, but important.
He says.
Humble yourselves by or as you are casting all of your cares upon God. So you begin by humbling yourself when you're seeking the father's care the father's providence and all of your concerns and all of your Needs.
The things that would cause others to to fret their fingers to the bone. You actually just fold gently in prayer. You're entrusting yourself to the one who knows. And what is what is the result of that if you're praying in this way.
You will be humbled if you're humbled in this way. You will be praying like that. These things are held together. I forget the Puritans name, but something don't tell me of one who's humble in prayer who has you know, whole knees.
Okay, someone who's a very humble believer, but you know, there's no evidence of prayer in his life. These things are held together. God calls us to cast our cares upon him so that we can walk humbly in dependence upon him.
So if you've got a humility problem, you've got a prayer problem. It could be that you completely misunderstand God's direction and control of your life. You're approaching him more like a pagan in prayer and in pride and arrogance.
You're seeking to manipulate and control your life. Prayer is meant to humble you as you entrust yourself to his control over your life. Listen, if you're a believer, you realize pretty quickly. I'm thankful.
I don't control my life. I Don't trust myself to control my life. There were things that I wanted to happen in my life about 15 years ago, I praise God those things didn't happen. Thank God. I'm not in control of my life.
Praise God that he is. Cast your cares upon the one who knows the one who sees the one who hears. The one who gives promises that in due time in the best way. He'll answer. Even if the answer is wait for me casting.
I love that image of casting. What's what's a cast it's a throw. It's some if you were carrying a burden. It's it's heaving it on God. That's the image. It's not the sort of passive waiting. Which is really again just a species of fatalism.
Say lovey, what can I do? This is just well, that's how is that worldlings think that way? No, this is just it's life. This is how life is. No sense of control or purpose or order to anything. It's it's the kind of casting that's like fishing.
I know a lot of I people ask. Oh, do you like fishing? I like casting because that's generally what I do a cast and reel never drag anything in. It's sort of casting throwing something out and you just wait.
That's not the kind of prayer that Peter says we should cast just cast and wait who knows what's gonna happen. No, it's it's picking up a burden and saying I can't hold this here Lord and humility here.
You're strong enough for this Lord. I'm entrusting you to carry this you have a purpose for this. I don't know what to do with it. That's the kind of casting.
Delivering.
Your worries your fears your needs over to the God who already knows. And Paul says in Philippians 4 in this way be anxious for nothing. This is the very heart of where we're going in Matthew 6. You don't have to be worried.
Anxiety doesn't have to be a spiritual cancer that's eating away your health and happiness. You don't have to be anxious. You don't have to manage anxiety in the way that the world does by drowning themselves and deluding themselves and in all sorts of delusions.
Numbing themselves to difficulty and pain because it's too hard to face it. Of course it is. It's too hard for us to face some of the things in life we have to face unless we can cast our cares in the God who already knows what we need.
And Paul can say therefore be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication make your requests known to God. All the emphasis is on making the request known. Not on manipulating the outcome.
Be anxious because you've made it known. He already knows leave it at that. Be anxious for nothing. Prayer is the antidote to anxiety. But only if we pray in the way that Jesus instructs us to pray. If you pray like a pagan you'll be more anxious.
If you pray like a hypocrite you'll be more stressed more consumed. You're happy with the performance as long as it lasts, but in your own life in the secrecy of your own room. There's nothing but worry and fear to consume you.
Jesus says the antidote for anxiety and worry is entrusting yourself to your heavenly Father who knows what you need even before you ask. And he says cast all your care. Again, I'm not gonna dive into this because we're gonna get there in verse 31 and 32.
But later on in this very chapter Jesus will say do not worry saying what are we gonna eat? What are we gonna drink? What are we gonna wear? After all these things the Gentiles seek your heavenly Father knows that you need these things.
Do you see he'll repeat the very thing he's saying here in verses 7 and 8. When you're a child you're not worried about what you're gonna wear and what you're gonna eat. And Jesus has been addressing his disciples as children of a heavenly father.
In fact, he'll Recourse throughout Matthew the idea of unless you're like a child you you cannot enter the kingdom. The kingdom is composed as such as these it's a kingdom of children and what's the driving image there?
Children that are wholly dependent upon the father. The father is the provider the father is the protector. The father is the one who has a plan and a purpose and is guiding them. If you have if you're a father with young ones, you know exactly it's like you're providing that they're not providing.
You're dressing you're feeding your guy. Here's where we're going little kids just order along for the road. Where are we going today? What are you putting on me today? What are you putting on the plate today?
They almost have nothing to do with the process. The father is the one who's constantly giving and Jesus says that's exactly how you should think about it. How many four-year-olds in your homes wake up and say what am I gonna eat?
What am I gonna wear? How am I gonna provide for my needs today? Four-year-old never thinks in that way. It's always food in the cupboard, where does it come from? Who knows where this t-shirt come from?
Why do I have to wear these pants? It's just given to you. Jesus says pray like that. Pray like you're wholly dependent upon the father because in truth you are. Pray like no matter how rotten you've been as a cranky toddler in the confines of your home.
Your father is still faithful to love you and provide for you pray like that. Don't go slink away and hide. Don't think I can make up for it and somehow then he'll be more prone to give me the things that I need.
A Father knows how to give good things to his children. You look at the concern of Jesus. One of my favorite little vignettes from Mark 5 is when you know, of course the whole village is mourning because of Jairus the synagogue rulers daughter and You know Jairus is sick and the Lord gets sort of slowed down on the way because of the woman with the sort of unceasing flow of blood.
And eventually he makes it to the house. But by the time he gets there the mourners are already in full swing. Jairus his daughter is dead. And he walks through the sort of empty hollow wailing. It's all performative and he comes into the place where there's real mourning all the family and relatives you can imagine smothering this girl with with hugs and kisses and tears because she's she's dead and Jesus raises her up and they're all Absolutely stunned mesmerized.
They can't speak and Mark records that Jesus says get her something to eat. I love that little detail. They're all just. It's almost like they were smothering her in the moment and now they're out in the village.
You got it. You won't believe what just happened and she's just alone and Jesus like, you know, she doesn't need to eat something. He knows what what is needed. Everyone that is consumed with concern about her doesn't even concern.
Don't even have the awareness or concern that Jesus has about what she needs most. Get her something to eat. Isn't that powerful? Do you know how much he cares for you? He cares for you. The infinite I am who feeds sparrows cares for you.
He says you're far more precious than they. Don't slink away as if he doesn't care. Don't create foliage over the struggles and trials of your life as if he's aloof. Not only does he know before you ask see the things that can never be hidden.
He cares. That's why he didn't spare his own son. Your father knows.
Your father cares.
Your weakness doesn't separate you from his mercy. Your failure doesn't sever his affection.
Jesus says.
I've come to seek and save that which is lost. He's going seeking and saving and everyone's scattering and running just like his sheep scatter when the shepherd was struck. But Isaiah 57 says though he dwells in a high and holy place He dwells with one who has a contrite and humble spirit.
He's come to revive the spirit of the humble. I want to close with these words. I many many years ago I read this passage from B .B. Warfield that the the Lion of Princeton as he was known but a faithful man of God.
Who.
As a young theologian with the world as his oyster ahead of him. Incredible intellectual prowess sort of lightning rod for the strictness and firmness of the church at the time through many controversies in the 19th century including the doctrine of Inerrancy and of scripture and the liberalizing tendencies within his denomination.
Warfield was a young man. His wife newly wed. They were newlyweds and his wife Had a tragic accident and she basically became bed-bound for the rest of her life. She was an invalid. He had his house in the Princeton Seminary campus.
So that as soon as he left lectures, he could go back to her right away. He'd only Venture to take walks with students around the house. He always wanted to be near to her all the decades of their married life together.
You got the sense that it wasn't just his intellectual prowess. It was his spiritual tenderness that attracted students to him. Here was someone who walked with God. Here's someone that knew the father's care and reflected that care in the life of his wife and all the others that he came into contact with.
He was a man that had been humbled by God as he was casting all of those burdens upon the father. He was entrusting himself to that marks a man's walk with God.
Humility be very weary of.
Modeling your life after men that seem to be God-fearing and Fundamentally lack humility. Be like the Lion of Princeton who was like the lion who was a lamb? Well, this is a passage that's really over the years stayed with me and I'm gonna close with this.
This is BB Warfield.
He says see us.
Steeped in the sin of the world loving evil for evil's sake hating God. Hating all that God stands for ever seeking to drain deeper and deeper the cup of our sinful indulgence. The spirit follows us. Unwaveringly through it all.
He abides with us. Because our rejection of him would leave us helpless. He does not condition his further help upon us recognizing his love. He does not condition his further help upon us returning his love.
His continuing with us is only conditioned on his own love for us. And that love for us is so strong so mighty so constant it can never fail. When he sees us immersed in sin rushing headlong to destruction, he doesn't turn from us.
He yearns for us with a jealous envy. It is in the hands of this love that we have fallen and Because we have fallen into the hands of this love that we have before us a future of everlasting Hope when we lose hope in ourselves when effort after effort has issued only in disheartening failure.
Our sin looms large before our despairing eyes when our hearts hate and despise themselves. And we remember that God cannot abide the least iniquity. It is then that the spirit whom he sent labors with us.
Not an indifference. Not in hatred but in pitying love. His love burns all the stronger because we so deeply need his help when you pray. Do not use vain repetitions like the heathen do. Thinking they'll be heard for their many words.
Don't be like them. Your father knows what you need already before you even ask him. Amen. Let's pray Father thank you for your word Lord. Thank you for your love. Thank you for sending your son. Sending your spirit into our lives.
Give us the spirit of prayer childlike dependent entrusting prayer. Forgive us Lord. We too often vacillate between praying like hypocrites to praying like pagans. May we pray like Christians. May we pray like sons and daughters of a heavenly father.
Whose love is so rich so profound so unutterable. May we pray as those who have a simple dependence upon your Daily renewing mercy and care with gratitude and simplicity. May we serve you all of our days give us that humility that can only be born as we cast our cares on you in this way and Help us Lord to cast our cares in such a way that we grow in humility toward you.
Toward one another as a church. Let us be marked By these very things we ask in your son's name. And father we do pray for those in our midst that may be strangers to your grace. May this be the very day that they take in an unliftable burden of guilt and sin and rebellion.
And cast it upon you Recognizing Lord that you stretched out your arms on the tree of our curse to bear that very weight of guilt and sin and May they experience Lord the birth and the freedom and the life of faith.
That we have come to experience and treasure. Lord bless us in this way. Bless our body. Help us to grow. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.