How to Pray

Walking To Heaven:
How Jesus Taught Us To Pray
Mat 6:5-15


Intro Thoughts—Jesus and Prayer

1. Don’t Pray Like Them—Mat 6:5-8—Avoid Hypocrisy and superstition

a. Civic prayer and Hypocrites’ prayer—even though said to the One True God, are of no use
(1) Civic Prayer—done as a ceremony for some civic purpose, often by unbelievers
(2) Hypocrisy—“religious” prayer to show off
(3) Not that it is wrong to pray in public. The Lord Himself prayed in public, as did His disciples, indeed as the whole church did in Acts 4:24-28 and other places.
(4) Paul and Silas prayed out loud in the Philippian jail (Acts 16:25)—loud enough for the other prisoners to hear
(5) Paul urges that there be public prayer in the church for specific blessings (1 Tim 2:1-4).
(6) We could go on and on, but these examples should be enough to see that there is nothing wrong with public prayer in and of itself.
(7) The civic prayers and the hypocrites prayers have this problem: they were not praying to God! Like the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14, they were praying to themselves. Instead of their personal devotions being private, these, for show, do their private devotions in public.
(8) God’s verdict on civic prayer and on hypocrites’ prayers: “Don’t be like them.”

b. Pagan Prayer—Superstition

(1) Pagans chant, repeat mindless mantras, babble, and so on to speak to their “god.”
(2) The priests of Baal against whom Elijah fought, chanted and danced and cut themselves until the blood gushed forth from them, but Baal never replied, because Baal was a figment of their imagination, not a real God (1 Kings 18:25-29).
(3) In many of the churches of Christendom, there are prayers and rituals which seem uncomfortably close to this, and perhaps there are those with a pagan, superstitious attitude about prayer in the best of Bible-preaching churches. Jesus said, “Don’t be like them.”
(4) The most important fact—prayer is not about getting our needs met! Therefore, don’t be like them!
(5) The essence of prayer is not opening doors to release blessings; the essence of prayer is not getting the answer to prayer which we want; the essence of prayer is not even to receive spiritual blessings through our prayers. !
(6) God KNOWS WHAT WE NEED
(7) The essence of prayer is communion and fellowship with God the Father. In His sovereignty and providence, He will take care of His people. In this same chapter (Mat 6:24-34), God makes the point that we are not to be anxious about our physical needs—He will take care of us.
(8) The pagans think that they will get what they want from God by their repetition; many in Christendom think that they can put God in a spiritual choke hold to get their lusts satisfied (James 4:3). Don’t be like them, because they don’t have a clue.

2. Plain instruction—pray like this
a. Not “pray these words:” Pray like this—use this for an outline for your prayers
b. The Object of Our Prayers: “Our Father In Heaven, Holy Is Your Name”
(1) The Fatherhood of God—Abba, Father—Mk 1:1, Gal 4:4, Jn 1:18, Jn 3:16, Jn 14:31, Mat 11:27, Jn 1:1-2, Jn 3:35, Jn 17:5.
(2) IN Heaven—Our Home is not here
(3) Our Father is in Heaven, but He is also everywhere else (Ps 139), He even “inhabits” eternity. The verb form for “is” is a present tense—indicating continuity. Our Father IS in Heaven. The goal of our prayers and worship, the object of our salvation, is that we will one day stand in that place.
(4) Heaven is a location, though you won’t find it on any standard map;
(5) It is the location where God the Father sits in Glory (Rev 4:2), and where God the Son intercedes for us (Rom 8:34). Though one of God’s incomprehensible attributes is omnipresence, His Presence is in this place called Heaven, or better yet, seated on The Throne of Grace (Heb 4:14-16).
(6) When we who belong to Him boldly enter into fervent effective prayer (James 5:16), through the blood of His Son (Heb 10:18-19), we enter into this Presence in a way that physical reality cannot allow us to fully comprehend. We Walk to Heaven in prayer.
c. The Holy Name—not just that He is holy, but His NAME is holy. Psa 145:21 "…all flesh shall bless His holy name Forever and ever." Ezek 39:25 ""…I will bring back the captives of Jacob…I will be jealous for My holy name;"

3. God’s Sovereignty: Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven
a. The Truth is that God is the only Ruler – The Bottom Line about God—1 Chr 29:11
(1) God Rules! God is Sovereign, that is, He is a King Who answers to no one. Psa 115:3
(2) Ps 135:6
(3) Psa 22:28 “For the kingdom is the Lord's, And He rules over the nations.” Psa 103:19 “The LORD has established His throne in heaven, And His kingdom rules over all.”

b. The Kingdom: once, now, and Future
c. The Kingdom NOW
d. Your will in my life!

4. Our Needs—Give us this day…
a. First—note the relative position and importance of our needs—not very high!
b. Second—our needs are important to God
c. Third—daily provision!
d. Remember, He knows your needs



5. Our Greatest Need—to Forgive
a. Not works for salvation, However, there is the issue of communion with God—Mat 18:21-35
b. The way people forgive—with limits
(1) Time limits—it hasn’t been long enough
(2) Personal limits—“I’m not ready”
(3) Numerical limits—only so many times
(4) Storing information for later use

c. The key doctrine overlooking all of this—How God forgave us
(1) forgiveness exceeds the ability to count—this is how the Kingdom of Heaven is
(2) IF you have truly forgiven, then the “next” time someone does something is actually the “first” time they do it.
d. So will my Father –God—Do To You—Believers
(1) “Torturers” The literal word here. God does not torture us, but when we will not forgive, we torture ourselves
(2) Chastisement can and will result from unforgiveness
(3) Unforgiveness can be a form of self-torture—every time we re-live the event, it is new and fresh in our minds
(4) The event or series of events grow in mental intensity until we are remembering things that never happened, and we remember them with an intensity that was not even there at the beginning
e. If you do not forgive your fellow brother—again, this is between believers
f. From the Heart!
(1) Heart forgiveness is not difficult for people, it is IMPOSSIBLE
(2) “How can I forgive?”
(3) First, if it is from the heart, that means it requires the intervention of God into our own lives—Jer 17:9-10
(4) Second, if it is from the heart, that means that superficial human forgiveness will not do
(5) God Forgives from the heart
(6) God Forgives immediately
(7) God Forgives without price paid by us
(8) God Forgives and forgets

6. Spiritual Warfare—Lead us not into temptation, but protect us from the Evil One.
a. God tests, but He does not tempt
“And bring us not into temptation (kai meô eisenegkeôis eis peirasmon). “Bring” or “lead” bothers many people. It seems to present God as an active agent in subjecting us to temptation, a thing specifically denied in James 1:13. The word here translated “temptation” (peirasmon) means originally “trial” or “test” as in James 1:2 … God does test or sift us, though he does not tempt us to evil. No one understood temptation so well as Jesus for the devil tempted him by every avenue of approach to all kinds of sin, but without success. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus will say to Peter, James, and John: “Pray that ye enter not into temptation” (Luke 22:40). .. The idea is then: “Do not allow us to be led into temptation.” ATR
b. This is about spiritual warfare
Deliver us from evil—The original in this place has the article—deliver us from the evil—that is, as has been supposed, the Evil One, or Satan. He is elsewhere called, by way of eminence, the “Evil One,” Matt. 13:19; 1 John 2:13-14; 3:12. The meaning here is, “deliver us from his power, his snares, his arts, his temptations.” ATR
Rom 7:24 "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"
2 Cor 1:10 "who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us,"
Col 1:13 "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,"
1 Th 1:10 "… Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come."
2 Tim 3:11, 2 Tim 4:17-18, 2 Pet 2:7-9

7. The Benediction—For yours is….
a. This goes back over all that God is
b. This gives God the glory for everything—As did Job in 42:1-6

8. Putting Prayer into Practice—6:14-15
a. He is saying: “if you pray it, obey it.”
b. If you want to walk to Heaven, follow Christ