The Lord’s Prayer – Putting Righteousness into Practice
July 7, 2024

The Lord’s Prayer – Putting Righteousness into Practice

Preacher:
Passage: Matthew 6:1-18

Introduction: The Lord’s Prayer
This afternoon we’re starting a new 6-week series. We’ll be considering how Jesus taught his disciples to pray in what is commonly referred to as The Lord’s Prayer. Tonight I’m going to help make sure we understand the context of this prayer and some basic points that Jesus makes about prayer in general. Then over the next five weeks we’ll give attention to each part of the Lord’s Prayer, and see how He instructs us to pray.

So if you have your Bibles with you, please turn with me to Matthew, Chapter 6. I’ll start at verse 1, and will read through the end of verse 18 to give some context. Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 1 through 18. But before I read our text today, let’s pray together.

[PRAY AND READ TEXT]
Context of the Lord’s Prayer
The passage I just read, including the Lord’s Prayer here, is part of a larger sermon that Jesus gave. This sermon, starting in Matthew Chapter 5, and running through the end of chapter 7, is often referred to as The Sermon on the Mount. And in Jesus’s sermon, he teaches about the kingdom of heaven.

Specifically, Jesus teaches his audience – most of them would have been Jews – he teaches them about the righteousness of God’s kingdom. The righteousness God delights in, the righteousness God wants for His people, isn’t just outward conformity. But repeatedly in this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus emphasizes that God’s kingship extends over every part of us – our hearts, our ethics, our desires, our motivations, our priorities. He wants us to live righteously from the inside out.

Now notice, though, Jesus is not giving people a list of what they must do in order to gain entry into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus isn’t teaching people to try to work their way into the kingdom. He isn’t teaching salvation by works. But he’s showing unsaved sinners that they fall short of God’s righteousness. They need to seek God’s righteousness instead of trying to make their own. And at the same time, Jesus is showing saved sinners, who are trusting in God for their righteousness – he’s teaching them how to put their righteousness into practice, as a citizen of God’s kingdom.

So as I unpack the text here, I’d like to point out three important points that Jesus lays out with reference to prayer. First, the Lord isn’t impressed with worldly performances. Second, the Lord isn’t impressed with wordy petitions. And third, the Lord insists on righteous prayer.
The Lord Isn’t Impressed by Worldly Performances
So first, the Lord isn’t impressed by worldly performances.

In verses 1 through 18, you’ll see that Jesus teaches about more than prayer. He also talks about giving to the needy and fasting. And the reason why Jesus mentions these three things is because they were the primary ways that the Jews expressed their devotion to God. In Kevin DeYoung’s book on the Lord’s Prayer, he explains,

“These were the ‘spiritual disciplines’ for the first-century Jews; (they would have memorized much of the Bible, but most couldn’t read it daily because much of the population was illiterate and individual families did not have Scripture scrolls in their homes). If they made New Year’s resolutions back then, they would have thought of giving to the poor, praying, and fasting.”(1) (end of quote).

And these three activities are helpful categories for thinking through how we put our faith in to practice. The British preacher Martyn Lloyd Jones explained it this way: “First of all comes the question of almsgiving—our charity toward others, then the question of prayer and our relationship to God, and finally the question of personal discipline which [Jesus] considers under the general heading of fasting.”(2) So as Jesus gives instructions in these three categories, we should understand that righteous living necessarily impacts how we deal with others, how we deal with God, and how we deal with ourselves.

And in all three instances, Jesus gives very similar instructions. First, Jesus here says when you give to the needy, when you pray, and when you fast – not if but when. The righteousness we have through faith in Christ is an active righteousness, that produces actual habits of righteousness. A holy way of life is something that rightly belongs to the citizens of God’s Kingdom.

But with all three of these things – giving, praying, and fasting – Jesus warns us about practicing our righteousness in order to be seen or praised by other people. He warns against being like the hypocrites, who outwardly pretend to worship God, but are inwardly seeking glory and honor for themselves. Instead, Jesus says in all three cases, when you practice your generosity, your private prayer life, and your self-denial, you should do these things for God alone – not to be seen by others, but in secret.

Now, this perhaps raises the question – does that mean that we should never do good things in public? Should we keep our devotion to God hidden, where no one can see it? Well, no, that isn’t Jesus’s point here. Because earlier in His sermon, In Matthew 5, verse 14, Jesus has just told his disciples, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” So Jesus isn’t telling us to take our Christianity underground. He wants us to live it out visibly, tangibly, publicly, so that people may see our good works and give God the credit for it.

Jesus wants our acts of devotion to really be for God, to honor him, and not just a performance that we put on to impress other people. When Jesus says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” – when Jesus says this, there’s a real warning for us here. Jesus knows how the human heart works. He knows that we’re going to be tempted to use religion to promote ourselves instead of God.

So since we’ll be focusing on prayer for the next few weeks, I want you to stop and think about this for a moment. What place does prayer have in your life? If you only spend time with God at church or in public settings, and never on your own, in secret, you should probably wonder why is it missing? If you’re only interested in praying when other people notice you for it, ask yourself – who are you doing it for?

Are you using social media to give the impression that you’re more devout than other people? Do you offer to pray for people because it seems like the godly thing to say, even though you have no real intent to follow through with it? Do you feel jealous of people who seem more prayerful? Are you disappointed when people don’t commend you for your biblical knowledge or godly habits?

These are the sorts of issues Jesus is trying to deal with here. Prayer isn’t a performance, to seek glory for yourself. Prayer is supposed to be how you and I quietly, humbly, affirm the worth and glory of God. In prayer, I want to be brought up to God, to enjoy him, for nothing is more pleasant; to adore him, for no one is more glorious; to seek his help, for no one is stronger, to seek his reward, for no one is greater.

No one but God deserves your attention in prayer. The reward he gives is the only one that’s worth anything. The quality and intensity of your prayer life should be consistent, regardless of whether you’re standing in front of the church, or kneeling in your bedroom closet. Because God’s praiseworthiness doesn’t change from one location to the other. If you’re personally convinced that God is precious, that he’s truly worth knowing and following, you’ll desire to spend time with Him in prayer.

The Lord Isn’t Impressed by Wordy Petitions

But after Jesus warns his disciples about being like the hypocrites in prayer – in verses 5 and 6, he then gives an extra word of caution in verses seven and eight. Jesus teaches that the people should also avoid praying like the Gentiles – like the non-Jewish polytheists and pagans.

The main issue with the prayers of the Gentiles, according to Jesus, is that they “heap up empty phrases” because “they think that they will be heard for their many words.” And Jesus wants to make clear here, God isn’t impressed by that. This brings us to my second point from the text: The Lord isn’t impressed by wordy petitions.

There are probably a few different reasons why the Gentiles had prayers with many words. Some of these non-Jews likely listed out all their acts of devotion from the past, thinking they could somehow persuade their deities to bless them. Other nations may have repeated certain holy words or sounds, hoping this would improve their standing before God. And other Gentiles, meanwhile, perhaps tried to say things exactly the right way, using the right words, in the right order, as though the power of answered prayer rested in their words – almost like uttering a magic spell.

But in verse 8, Jesus emphatically says, “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” And what Jesus is saying here is stop treating God like an impersonal magical force. Stop treating God like a slot machine at the casino, where you keep pouring out words in your prayers – you keep pulling the handle – hoping that someday the right combination will come up and you’ll win it big. Instead, Jesus tells the people of God here, you should pray to God as someone who already knows your needs, as someone who’s already committed to you in love. You should call to him as your FATHER.

Because that’s what makes the difference in our prayers! Not the extravagance of our requests, but the existence of this relationship – a relationship of love between God as our Father, and us as His children. When God responds to your prayers and petitions – when he grants what you’ve been asking for – it will never be because you asked your prayer in exactly the right way, with the right word count, using the right terminology. No, in 100% of those cases, the reason God will have answered our prayers is because He is our Father, and he’s committed to doing for us what’s good.

And this also means that when we, as God’s children, ask for things in prayer, and we don’t receive those things, it isn’t because we didn’t say enough in our prayer. We can have just as much confidence that God has heard our prayers when we don’t get what we’ve asked for as when we do get what we’ve asked for, because God is Our Father. He knows our needs, and he cares for us, his children, accordingly.

The Lord Insists on Righteous Prayer

And though we’re going to go into more detail over the next few weeks, I just want to point out a few observations on how Jesus teaches his followers to pray. This is my last point here – the Lord insists on righteous prayer.

First, you’ll notice in the beginning of verse 9, Jesus commands them to pray. The citizens of the kingdom of heaven will have a relationship with their king. Prayer is a priority.

Second, you’ll notice that Jesus commands them to pray like this, and then lays out the Lord’s prayer. Now, Jesus isn’t saying that this is the only prayer we should ever pray – he says pray like this. He’s laying out for us a sample prayer, to teach us what righteous prayer should look like. So unpacking the Lord’s Prayer over the next few weeks is warranted. Jesus wants the substance of this prayer to inform the way we pray on a regular basis.

Third, I want to point out that Jesus’s prayer here in verses 9 through 13 is simple, and relatively short. Prayer is something that just about everyone can do. It’s something we can (and should) even teach our young children to do. Our prayers don’t have to be elaborate or spectacular. In fact, you can maybe imagine when Jesus said those words, “pray then like this,” the disciples were maybe on the edge of their seats, thinking that Jesus was going to say something profound, something revolutionary! And though there is a certain profundity in the Lord’s Prayer, the main take-home for the disciples likely would have been that it’s surprisingly plain and simple. Prayer is something we can do. It’s attainable. It’s accessible.

And finally, Jesus teaches us to pray in a way that’s focused on God and godliness. This prayer is a prayer of genuine humility and reverence. This helps to reframe our minds and our hearts to rightly think about reality, with God on the throne, and we as his children. This prayer guides us into right priorities and right worship. So let’s pray, that as we reflect on what we just heard, and continue to give attention to prayer, that the Lord wouldn’t just make us a people who talk about praying, or who talk about valuing prayer, but that we’d be genuinely eager to pray and spend time with the God we love. Let’s pray.

(1) DeYoung, Kevin. The Lord’s Prayer. Wheaton, Ill., Crossway, 2022.

(2) Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Grand Rapids, Mich., Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.