Sermon Series: Sermon on the Mount

Praying Without Hypocrisy

Matthew 6:5-15

PSBC 4/30/00

In a nutshell: The Lord's prayer models concepts that are important for Christians to display in their lives. We run the risk of being hypocrites if we pray or live in any other way.

I. Introduction

A. Jokes

1. A teacher went into her classroom about fifteen minutes before the class was supposed to begin and caught a bunch of boys in a huddle on their knees in the corner of the room. She demanded of them what they were doing, and one of them shouted back, "We're shooting craps." She replied, "Oh, that's all right. I was afraid you were praying."

2. I actually saw this sign on a teacher's desk at our daughter's former high school in Upland, California... it read "In the event of nuclear attack, fire, or earthquake, the ban on prayer in this public school is temporarily lifted."

B. Upland experience

Prayer in public places has become a major issue in just about every corner of our country during the past 30 years.

When I first became pastor at the Mountain View Church, in Upland, California, I was asked to give the opening prayer before the City Council. Before it was my time to give that prayer, I had to spend a 15 minute briefing session with the mayor's assistant to make sure I was aware of how to pray in a way that wouldn't offend any ethnic, or minority, or religious group in town.

I was told I shouldn't pray in Jesus' name; I shouldn't refer to God as only "He"; and for sure, I must not say anything that would in anyway offend the Mormons, Hindu's, Bahai's, followers of Astara, Roman Catholics, liberal Protestants, or any groups that might not believe in God as I did.

In reality, what I was being asked to do, was to be an actor on a stage for the city council of Upland. I was being asked to follow a script that it would be acceptable and pleasing to the audience. The Bible has a word for that. It calls it being a HYPOCRITE. You see, the Greek word for hypocrite, literally means to be an actor.

And I guess I wasn't a very good actor, Because although I was in that town for four years, I was never invited back to pray before the Council again. That's because I didn't follow the instructions I was given, very well.

You might pray for me this week, because I've been asked to give the Invocation at the Palm Springs City Council on Wednesday. Pray that I'll have wisdom, discernment and courage to refrain from being an actor.

C. The situation of Jesus' Day

The passage we'll be looking at this morning, was a very timely one for me, this week. Because it speaks directly to this issue of praying and avoiding being an actor on a stage when you do it. Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 6, starting with verse 5....

While you're doing that, let me give you some background to help you understand what Jesus is going to say.

No other nation that has ever existed has had a higher view of prayer, than did the Jewish nation of Jesus' day. The Rabbi's taught that "Great is prayer–greater than all good works." But certain faults had crept into the system.

1. Prayer had become exclusively-formalized. By that I mean, people seldom prayed outside of the required times for prayer. And they seldom prayed using their own words. Instead they used the rote and formal words taught them by their rabbi's .

a. Shema

Every morning before 9:00 AM, and every evening, before 9:00 PM, a good Jew was to recite the words of the "Shema". Shema, is the Hebrew word for "Hear". It was supposed to keep a Jewish person from forgetting who he was serving, and who gave him the land in which he was residing. It comes from...

Deuteronomy 6:4-5
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

b. The Eighteen

But, not only did a good Jewish person recite the Shema twice a day, but, three times, every day, that person was also required to recite group of prayers known as "The Eighteen". These were eighteen short prayers. Here's just one of them...

"Bring us back to thy law, O our Father; bring us back, O King, to thy service; bring us back to thee by true repentance. Praise be thou, O Lord, who accepts our repentance."

These 18 prayers were designed to keep people aware of God's involvement in every part of their daily existence.

But as good as the content of those prayers were, over time, both the Shema and The 18 had become rote prayers, said only at certain times of the day, and that was the extent of most Jewish people's prayer life.

2. But, besides this "mere formality", a second problem that had crept into the prayer lives of the Jewish people of Jesus' day. Instead of keeping these prayers between God and themselves, the religious leaders, were on a "bigger and better" quest.

At the appropriate times for prayer, these Pharisees would close their shops, or businesses, and go out into the street, raise their hands high in the air, and shout out these prayers for everyone to hear. Then, if that wasn't enough, they'd embellish these prayers with more and more words.

By praying long and loud, they gave a facade of superior spirituality to everyone who saw them. In fact, a familiar teaching of the rabbis during Jesus' day was this, "Whoever is long in prayer is heard."

Now, the tragic thing about all this loud and long praying was the motives behind these prayers. The Pharisees hoped that this public display of spirituality would bring in more business to their shops, and more respect for them in the community. In reality, their prayers became ways of calling attention to themselves.

3. And as if these first two problems weren't bad enough, there was a third problem. This problem, though, wasn't with the Jews. This problem was with the pagan culture around the Jews that was beginning to influence the way they prayed.

In the story of the Old Testament prophet Elijah, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, we read of a practice that displeases God. It was done by the prophets of Baal....

1 Kings 18:26
26 So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted.

Did you catch what they were doing? They were chanting or repeating the same thing over and over again. And this near-eastern, pagan practice of chanting-prayers for long periods of time was starting to influence the way the Jewish people prayed to the Lord God.

so...To these practices of "acting" or hypocrisy, Jesus says this...(look at the morning's text)

Matthew 6:5-8
5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

II. Three Important Points of Application about our Prayers

Now, from these verses, I want to show you three important points of practical application to each one of us, regarding what Jesus has said in this passage.

A. Your Practice

Let's first look honestly at each of our prayer practices. But instead of talking in generalities, let's get very specific, and examine the practice of praying before meals. Have any of these problems that were going on in Jesus day crept into your practice?
–Do you merely recite prayers at "the right time"? or
–Do you try to impress someone with your spirituality, by the flowery words you say? or
–Do you repeat the same words over and over again without thought to their meaning or significance?

Joke: A father was trying to teach his daughter, how to say grace before meals. After a few weeks of coaching, the father decided his little girl was ready to say grace all by herself.
She started out fine, thanking God for her mommy and daddy and brother and sister and for the rolls and the salad, etc. Then she ended with a big, "Thank you, God, for the spaghetti!" and lifted her head.
But the practice in this home was to end each prayer with "In Jesus' name, Amen." So the dad prompted the little girl, "In ..."
At first, the little girl seemed confused. Then she proudly exclaimed, "In tomato sauce. Amen."

Do your meal time prayers still mean something? This is very practical application of this passage for us all!

B. All true prayer must be offered to God

But a second problem this teaching of Jesus helps us consider is this: To whom are we praying? You see, the Pharisees were very obviously praying to men, not to God. They were trying to impress people, not communicate with God.

Illustration: Harold Ockenga, who pastored the great, Park Street Church, in Boston, once said this about a prayer that was offered by a visiting politician in his church, "That was the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Boston audience." You see, the politician was much more concerned with impressing the people at the church than he was making contact with God.

Friends, Jesus is also saying that when we pray–whether it be in public or in private, we should have no other thought in mind and no other desire in our heart than God–Him and Him alone!

C. God loves us

A third point of application is that we need to remember that the God to whom we pray is a God of love. And the God who authored love is more ready to hear and answer us than we are even to pray.

I like what William Barclay wrote in his commentary on Matthew, that I've included on the front of this morning's bulletin...

"His gifts and his grace have not to be unwillingly extracted from Him. We do not come to a God who has to be coaxed, or pestered, or battered into answering our prayers. We come to One whose one wish is to give. When we remember that, it is surely sufficient to go to God with the sigh of desire in our hearts, and on our lips the words, ‘Thy will be done.'"

III. How to Pray

Now, in the next verses we switch gears. Instead of warnings about how not to pray, we are given a model to follow when we pray...

A. Define a Model

You all know what a model is, right? A model is something that is held up as an example for our imitation or guidance. I came across a model for a pastor the other day, I thought you might be interested in the model that someone thinks I should imitate...

After hundreds of fruitless years, a model pastor has been found to suit everyone. It is guaranteed that he will please all the people in any church.
He preaches only 20 minutes, but thoroughly expounds the Word.
He condemns sin, but never hurts anyone's feelings.
He works from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. doing every type work from preaching in the pulpit to janitor work.
He wears good clothes, buys good books regularly, has a nice family, drives a nice car, and gives 50% of his salary back to the church.
And he stands ready to buy large quantities of candy and "useful" products and gifts from any child in the church who is out raising money.
His family is a complete model in deportment, dress and attitude.
He is 26 years old and has been preaching for 30 years.
He is tall, short, thin, heavy set, handsome, has one brown eye and one blue eye, hair parted in the middle, left side dark and straight, right side blond and wavy.
He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all his time with the older people.
He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work.
He makes 15 calls a day on church members, spends all his time evangelizing the unchurched, and is never out of the office.

I'm sure glad you all don't hold me to that model.

But it's this idea of a model that Jesus does hold up for us to follow in the next five verses. These words are what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer. But understand, they are not a model for a rote or memorized prayer. Rather, they are concepts and precepts for us to hold up for imitation and guidance in the way we live our lives.

Matthew 6:9-13
9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "`Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'

These prayer guidelines are given to keep us from being merely actors in our Christian faith. The concepts Jesus teaches in this prayer are designed to keep us from being hypocrites, like the Pharisees were in Jesus' day. Because, if we pattern our lives and our prayers after this model, not only will our prayer life honor God, but our whole life will honor Him as well. Let me show you what I mean...

B. Lord's Prayer Model

1. Our– If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't say "our" and live my life as if I'm the only person who matters. A follower of Jesus Christ needs the church. It connects him or her to a family. I'm part of the family of God. I cannot exist and grow as a Christian without fellowship, or meaningful contact, or learning, or serving with other Christians. Christianity doesn't work that way. Following Jesus Christ is not meant to be a Lone Ranger experience.

2. Father-- If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't say "Father" if I don't try everyday to live like his child. Children with a parent have rules to follow, expectations to fulfill, lessons to learn. I simply can't call God Father unless I'm willing to live as His child.

3. in heaven--If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't talk about heaven if I'm not planning now, to spend eternity there. The old gospel song says..."This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through". The Bible teaches that we are ambassadors on this earth, but we are citizens of heaven. That's where we're going to spend eternity. This human, earth-bound existence is just temporary, and if we treat it as anything more, we're hypocrites.

4. Hallowed be your name–Also, if I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't say "Hallowed by your name" unless I am in awe of God. And I can't be in awe of God if I treat him like some kind of cosmic errand boy or heavenly bell-hop, who simply exists to do my bidding, when and if I need something. I can't talk to Him only when I want something from Him. I have to respect and obey God because He is God, and I'm not!

5. Your kingdom come--If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't say "your kingdom come" if I'm caught up in the kingdom culture of a world that would rather deny the existence of God than acknowledge it. Friends, "It's not MY kingdom come--it's THY kingdom come"–In other words, Your way, God--not mine.

6. Your will be done--If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't say "your will be done" if I don't respect God's will enough to do it. You see, it comes down to this, a non-hypocritical follower of Jesus Christ says, "If my will conflicts with God's will, then I HAVE TO RE-DO MY WILL, God does not have to re-do His will.

7. Give Us Today Day Our Daily Bread--If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't say "give us today our daily bread" if I don't connect it with "your will be done". If I seek my own will rather than His, who do I think I am to ask God for daily bread to give me strength to go against His will? That's ridiculous!

8. Forgive Us our Debts as we also have forgiven our debtors--If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't ask "to be forgiven", until I am willing to forgive. I have to search my relationships and make things right with those I've wronged. Grudges against someone else have no place in a disciple's heart. Otherwise I'm like the servant Jesus talked about who after having millions of dollars worth of debt forgiven by the king, went out and threw his fellow servant into prison for the few cents he owed him.

Friends, don't mess with God at this point. This is such an important part of the model for following Jesus, that He adds verses 14 and 15 so we don't have any questions about what we are to do. Don't trivialize it's importance...

Matthew 6:14-15
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Friends, don't think you're above God's law at this point. This is serious stuff. Without your sins forgiven, you cannot enter into eternal life. And Jesus says here, your sins will not be forgiven if you don't forgive those who sin against you.

then the model prayer continues...

9. Lead Us not into temptation--If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't say "Lead me not into temptation" unless I'm willing to unhitch my wagon from the horse of worldly influence. I have to draw some lines in my life that I will not cross. I can't ask for protection from temptation if I continually place my self in temptation's path.

10. Deliver us from the evil one--If I'm going to follow Jesus' model, I can't ask for "deliverance from evil" if I insist on putting the worldly values of the anti-God-pop-culture of today into my brain. I can't ask to be delivered from evil if I insist on...
--watching movies without morals, or
–viewing TV programs that don't hold godly values, or
–listen to music that only caters to the baser human instincts, or
–read books that titillate and entice my libido.

Illustration: To do this is like being on a diet, and calling Pizza Hut, asking them to deliver a large pepperoni pizza to your house, then ask God to intercept the delivery guy before he gets to your house.

If you fill your life with evil influences, do you really think God's going to deliver you from them? Duh!

IV. Conclusion

Well, let me wrap this section of scripture up with this...If the concepts of this prayer are not the model for how you are striving to live, and you are choosing to ignore Jesus teaching at this point, then you've just defined what you are–you are a hypocrite. And make no mistake about it, hypocrisy is serious business to God. That's why God says this about hypocrites...

Matthew 23:27-28; 33
27 "Woe to you... hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.
28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
33 "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?

Friends, I don't care if you've called yourself a Christian all your adult life, or you've just come to know Him as your Savior in the past few weeks. We all need to pay close attention to God's Word at this point. It says, "Don't play games with God." The Lord's Prayer is your guide to take you away from hypocrisy and lead you toward being a true follower of Jesus Christ. 

Amen.