How Do You Pray?

Matt 6:5-13

I was at a lectureship many years ago when the topic of prayer came up in an open forum. The question was whether or not you should use “thee” and “thou” in prayers. The moderator, a well-respected leader in the church, said that you had to use these words because if you didn’t you weren’t being respectful. We think thee and thou are “holy” words because the King James uses them, but the King James was written using the basic English of it’s time. Thee and Thou were common street words; “You” was then and still is the proper grammar. I tell you that story because it show that even mature Christians don’t always have the best understanding of prayer and try to make it into something that God never intended it to be.

One of the things I learned early on when studying with people or even teaching our young people is that they rarely, if ever, pray. When I ask them why, the most common answer is that they don’t really know how and don’t want to do it wrong.

Prayer is such an important part of a Christian’s life and I don’t believe we can grow very deeply in our faith without prayer. So how do you pray? Does it really matter? What do you pray about? I’d like us to look at all these questions today.

PRAYER

I. The Mechanics of Prayer

A. Pray like this

1. Matt 6 passage gives us a look at what is involved in prayer

2. We usually call this passage the Lord’s Prayer, but it isn’t his prayer, it’s the disciple’s prayer.

3. We can learn a couple things about how to pray from his model that are very important.

B. Don’t be like the hypocrites

1. The very first thing we need to learn about how to pray is to understand the motivation for our payer.

2. Are you praying so others can think you are a wonderful spiritual person or because you have a heartfelt need to communicate with your Lord?

3. I always get a chuckle when I eat with someone who doesn’t usually pray at meals. The kids start to dig in and the parent stops them and says that they need to pray before they eat and then tries to remember the words to God is great, God is good, thank you father for our food.

4. I appreciate them realizing that they need to pray because I am there, but that prayer should have been happening whether I am there or not.

C. A model prayer

1. Our father

a) Jesus starts out this model prayer with acknowledging who God is.

b) He isn’t a buddy, nor is he someone to be though of trivially.

c) He is God and we need to revere even his name.

2. Your kingdom come

a) The thought of this part of the prayer is that the kingdom or the church would soon come into existence soon.

b) Since the kingdom has already come, it doesn’t do us any good to continue to pray for it to come.

c) However, we can learn from this toe pray for God’s church.

3. Your will be done

a) We should also pray for God’s will to be done.

b) That’s easy to say, it’s very hard to mean.

c) Look at the huge struggle Jesus had in the garden the night before he was crucified. Every ounce of his being wanted to run from what he knew needed to be done. Yet, he understood what it means to say to God, “Your will be done.”

d) Your child is sick.

e) You have a very difficult decision about a job promotion that would be great for you, but could hurt your spiritual life.

f) Could you say to God “your will be done?”

g) Just remember that in the big picture, God’s will done is better for all involved.

4. Our daily bread

a) Many people balk at praying for their own needs, but Jesus in this model prayer encourages us to do so.

b) What we need to remember is that there is a big difference between our daily bread and our daily steak.

c) Pray for your needs and think about whether you should pray for your wants or not.

5. Forgive us our debts

a) Basically it means to ask God to forgive of our sins.

b) Jesus also reminds us to forgive others of their sins against you.

6. Lead us not into temptation

a) Not only should we ask God to forgive us of our sins, but also we need to ask him to help us not get into sinful situations.

b) If you know where your sin struggles are, ask God to keep you away from those areas and not let Satan sink his claws into you.

7. In Jesus Name

a) Most of the time we end our prayers with the phrase “in Jesus name” or something very similar. The reason we do that is found in scriptures like John 16:23-24

b) ²³In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ²⁴Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.(NIV), John 16:23-24

II. Does Prayer Matter?

A. The Bible is filled with prayer

1. I did a search for the word prayer in the New Testament alone and found that prayer was used a minimum of 120 times!

2. This was an important topic for the New Testament writers.

3. The same can be said of the Old Testament as well.

4. If prayer didn’t matter, why would the Bible spend so much time talking about prayer and give so many examples of people saying prayers?

5. That thought alone should help us to realize that prayer really matters.

B. Prayer allows us to communicate with God

1. It’s like talking to your dad. That is the intimate relationship that God wants to have with us.

2. Our prayer is a conversation with God. It’s meant to be intimate and personal.

3. The only time you read about fancy prayers in the Bible were those done by the religious leaders of Jesus time and he condemned them because it was all a show and not a relationship.

4. The great prayers we have recorded in the Bible are people talking to God and sharing their feelings, frustrations and joys in their normal words.

5. No thees and thous, no pious highbrow religious words.

6. Just the words of a child talking to their father.

C. God hears and answers our prayers

1. Over and over the Bible tells us that God hears and answers our prayers.

2. What it doesn’t say is that he will answer all our prayers with a yes. It could be a no, later, or here is something better that you haven’t even thought of yet.

3. I’m not the kind of man who would be happy living a single life. I need a better half. In college I prayed over and over again to find a wife. I graduated with no wife, I moved to Fairbanks, Alaska where the male to female ratio was 11:1. Not good odds. Even more so when there were only 4 Christian women who were single in a 300-mile radius and one was old enough to be my mom! So I moved to the big city, Indianapolis. Surely there the odds would be better, but still no one filled what I was looking for. I was getting to the point of settling for just someone to fill the void. Then I got set up on a blind date with a young lady from Hawaii.

4. God answered my prayer, but not how I thought he would!

D. Prayer gives us strength

1. Some of my most discouraging times have been saved by prayer. Praying to God have lifted me up out of despair and given me hope when I didn’t see any hope.

2. When I have been scared, prayer has helped me overcome.

3. When I have felt so alone, prayer helped me realize who was always with me.

4. Prayer has given me strength to stay in the Dentist’s office when my body was screaming to run away.

E. Yes, prayer matter!

1. You had better believe prayer matters.

2. It is the thread that holds the fabric of our spiritual life together.

3. It’s what takes a shallow faith into a deep faith.

4. Prayer has to be one of the greatest gifts God has given us; second only to Jesus and salvation.

5. Learn to pray. It’s simple enough to do and it will add meaning to your faith that you never dreamed possible.