Perhaps there is no greater evidence of religion gone wrong, than in the practice of prayer. Our erroneous pictures of God filter out any hope of the relationship we were meant to enjoy with our creator. Losing my religion, why pray?

Would you agree that prayer can be awkward at times? Hard? This is exactly what Jesus means—you’ve got to lose the religion because you are boring God to death. Let’s look at Mathew 6:5:  “And when you pray don’t be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and on the street corners to be seen by other people.” Now note two things. First, notice Jesus assumes you are already praying. He doesn’t say IF you pray, he says WHEN you pray. The second thing to see is that when Jesus talks about hypocrites, he is talking about someone who is like an actor. Don’t be an actor. Hypocrites in this case would be religious people who are sincere but who are working really hard to try to be something they are not. Jesus goes on to say, “Truly I tell you they have received their reward in full, but when you pray go in to 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. And when you pray don’t keep on babbling like the pagans for they think they are going to be heard, because of their many words. Don’t be like them. For your Father knows what you need, before you ask him.” Let’s pray right now and ask the Lord to penetrate the deepest place of our being.

Father God, we just ask right now that you open the eyes of our hearts and unplug the ears of our spirits that we may fully receive everything we need to be transformed into the people that you have created us to be. We pray this together in Jesus’ name, Amen.

The greatest need that you and I have in our lives is the need to know God in a deep and intimate relationship. The psalmist put it this way in Psalm 42:1. He says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you dear God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”  It’s important that we all recognize this thirst because we attempt to quench it with many other things, including religion. Even though we may be sincere in our religion, religion is inadequate to satisfy this thirst to know God. I’m reminded of the story of Moses; Moses had experienced the power of God in incredible ways. Think about the burning bush. What about the ten plagues that God worked through Moses to convince Pharaoh to let the people go. Remember the parting of the Red Sea, so that the children of Israel could walk through on dry ground. I had the privilege to go out to Hollywood and be a consultant on the animated film The Prince of Egypt that DreamWorks produced. I was invited to the studio two years before its release. What an undertaking! It took 400 animators to pull that movie off. But what I loved when I was there were the sketches taped up on the wall. One of my favorites was that of the people walking through the sea on dry ground. The sketch reminded me of those aquariums you can visit where you see the fish swimming on both sides of you. Yet Moses, who keeps seeing these powerful works of God over the many years he serves God, the man who received the Ten Commandments from God, still isn’t satisfied. Moses said, “God, can I just ask you for one thing? Here is the only thing I want to do. I want to see your face.” We want to know God, and nothing else will substitute for that, nothing else will satisfy our thirst. Pascal, the French physicist in the 17^th century, said this, he said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which can’t be filled by any created thing, but only by God the creator, made known through His Son Jesus Christ.” I wish more scientists would understand that today, don’t you?

Now notice that Jesus begins in this passage with the assumption you are already praying. But then he also names places where we pray. Think of this past week and identify places and times where and when you prayed during the week. In the car, bathroom, work, bed, in front of your computer, at the dinner table? One of the places and times I love to pray is when I’m sitting on my deck. In a sense Jesus is making the point that many of us are so busy that we don’t really get focused on our prayer relationship with God until we are in a formal public place like a worship sanctuary where prayer is expected. Like right now you are thinking about God because there is one person on a platform saying, “Focus, focus, focus on the most important thing.” In this passage, we see a Pharisee praying on the street corner, a common practice in Jesus’ time at certain hours of the day. Orthodox Jews continue a similar practice today, praying—often publicly—three times a day: 9 in the morning, noon, and 3 in the afternoon.  So in Jesus’ day, where were people to be found between 9 a.m. and 3 in the afternoon? In public places. Well I took this picture at three o’clock in the afternoon in the streets of Jerusalem last year. Notice the men and boys praying.

Now, Jesus isn’t knocking tradition. He is fine with our coming together like we are this morning for a formal time of prayer, because tradition and public places of prayer can give us focus and discipline in our lives. Remember Daniel in the Old Testament, the guy who was thrown into the lion’s den? He prayed three times a day at the traditional Jewish times of prayer. He opened the windows when he prayed, even when his praying was against the law. He would not violate that time; it brought focus. On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given to the church, we see how powerful things happen when we come together to pray. Acts 2:1-4 says, “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” Since this behavior was so unusual, bystanders in the street started asking if those impacted by the Holy Spirit’s coming were drunk.  Peter said in verse 15, “These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!” Notice the reference to the 9 a.m. time frame for this first formal public time of prayer on Pentecost. Powerful things happen when we come together to pray, so Jesus is not knocking formality or tradition.

What Jesus is saying is saying in Matthew 6:6 is that you have to go beyond public times of prayer to these private intimate times Some of your Bibles translate his words to say, “go into your closet and pray.” It literally says go into a room with no windows. In other words, go to an intimate place where no one will see you there but your heavenly Father. See this is the safest place for me to be. This is the place where you can share all of your junk, your hopes, your fears, your failures; this is the only place in all the world that you can go and no will judge you or condemn you. You know there are things that I want to talk to Caroline about that I don’t want my kids to ever hear or know about. I don’t care if they are ages 31 and 28, this is a topic just for me and Caroline. Well where do go we when we want to share just with God—we go to a place with no windows, a place where we can have an intimate kind of relationship.

Now one of the reasons you and I struggle with prayer is the image we have of God. So many of the pictures we have of God are really from Greek and Roman perceptions of God. Those perceptions have influenced our thinking, and we fail to see the Jesus’ picture of God. The Greek/Roman pictures of God are of a distant judge, angry overlord and vengeful master. That rendition has also crept into some of our Christian art throughout the ages. Now how many times do you kind of struggle in your prayer because you know God knows your junk, you feel guilty and you see God as the judge. You see Jesus’ view of God as Abba is in stark contrast to these Greco Roman gods. You know Abba is the word that a young child would use as a term of endearment or affection towards their father, like “Daddy.” My 15-month-old grandbaby Ellie knows me as Papa. See Papa is a safe place to be; there is no condemnation with Papa. We have confused the Greco Roman vengeful master, distant judge, with the Father of the prodigal. Now you remember the father of the prodigal, the son who had messed up? The son had gone off, gotten hooked on drugs and alcohol, squandered his money on women, and probably had contracted a sexually transmitted disease. He finally realizes he has got an addiction, and he’s got a problem. He wants to get back, but he doesn’t know how to get back. Yet this Abba Father runs to the son when he sees him returning from afar. We need to picture God as this daddy who throws his arm around his son. He’s forgiving, he’s restorative, he’s not willing that any should perish. You know when you have this kind of relationship with God, when you are in deep dialogue with God, God is even willing to hear your perspective and change his mind. Some people believe, even John Calvin taught this (which I don’t believe is biblical), that everything is predestined, it’s predetermined. In that case, the only reason to pray is to align your thinking with God. Yet in the Bible we see God listening and willing to change his mind. In 2 Kings, we read about King Hezekiah. God came to Hezekiah and said, “Hezekiah set your house in order, because you are about ready to die.” Now isn’t that a pretty loving Father to give you a heads up? How many of you right now would change some priorities and things in your life if God came to you and said get your house in order because you are about to die. What kind of things would you change? Well, let me tell you, you’re going to die. It’s a good thing to start demonstrating those priorities right now. Am I right? So Hezekiah said, “Oh man, Lord, can I just have some more time?” So God said, “Okay, I’ll give you 15 more years.” Again and again we see that God’s will for your life isn’t always predetermined, but that God listens and God will change. You know one time God said to Abraham. “Abraham, get out of Sodom, because some bad things are about ready to come down.” And Abraham said. “Well, God, if I can point out 50 righteous people in Sodom will you spare it.” “Yeah if you can find 50 I will spare it.” And then Abraham began to deal with God; he said, “What about 30? What about 20? What about ten?” You see this is the kind of relationship that we can have with God.

Now why is prayer so important? Well first, folks, let me say that prayer is the way we communicate with God. It’s really the only way we can communicate with God. Now look at the priority of prayer in Jesus’ life. Jesus prayed all times of the day. He exceeded the three official times of Jewish prayer. Can I take a little detour here about something that really frustrates me about us, about Christians? Muhammad kind of blended Judaism and Christianity and put both into Islam. Muslims believe that Jesus is one of the prophets and that Jesus was born by a virgin birth. Muhammad also took the Jewish prayer mandate of prayer three times a day and upped it to five. Muslims go beyond the demands of the Jewish scripture, and we Christians do less. I think it’s what Jesus means sometimes where he says the pagans are wiser than we are. But Jesus himself prayed all times of the day, especially when he was in some of his busiest seasons of work. Think of the day he feed 5000 families, which would represent about 20,000 people. That was a major event! Anyone would be exhausted after that and ready to go grab a beer.  But here is the difference between us and Jesus. He dismissed his disciples after a long work day, and he went up on a mountain side by himself to pray. When evening came he was there alone with God.

You see, prayer is important because God is a God of relationships. Did you know that? He created you for himself. He didn’t make you to be this little work person for him on earth. God created you for himself. As a matter of fact he calls us the bride of Christ. Wow!  That’s big. You know. Jesus calls us the friend of God. You had better watch what you say about me this afternoon because I’m God’s friend. Isn’t that amazing? Listen to what Jesus says, “I no longer call you servants, because servants don’t know what their master’s business is all about, instead I have called you friends, for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Can you believe that? It’s like God’s not holding anything back. Now you know friendship involves intentional communication. How many married people in this room know how intentional you have to be with communication? Look at these words in Matthew 6: 5-8. These words are action verbs:  go, close the door, pray, forgive others. That’s communication.

Let’s talk about marriage. God has made men’s and women’s brains drastically different. You know what I mean? When I go home at night, I like to go out on our deck. My son six years ago built this beautiful place in the backyard where we have got this fishpond with the waterfall, you know, trees, wildlife. I was out there this morning, and there were chipmunks, baby rabbits, goldfinches. We even have a heron that comes and tries to eat my fish. I love to sit out there, put my iPod in, and do a little Led Zeppelin and some old Bird stuff. I just put my mind on brain dead. See God has made men so that we have these separate boxes in our brain and they do not touch or overflow. Everything is contained. So, when I am done with work, I don’t want to talk about work. I don’t want to unpack the day; it’s already in the work box. I also have my relationship box, and it does not touch my work box. Then I have my absolute brain dead, chill box. See, that is the box that allows men to sit there with the remote control and mindlessly flip channels. Now, women’s brains are different. There’s like this mess of wires that all run together, and everything connects. Everything has to do with everything else. So, when Caroline comes home she likes to come out on the deck and talk. Totally screws up my boxes. “What happened at work today?”  “What happened in senior management team meeting?”  I’ve already lived that and put that box away. All I want to do is listen to Zeppelin and watch the pond. What I am trying to train myself to do is to take the ear buds out, turn off my iPod and listen. See, conversation is two ways. God created us for relationship, not just to be little work junkies running around the earth. And God wants to tell us things, not just direct us, but to communicate. So we have to have times where we turn off the noise. We need to unplug from the noise and distractions because prayer is listening to God also.

Next week we are going to unpack the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer was not given to us to be a ritual that we repeat every week. It was an example to Jesus’ disciples who said, “Lord teach us to pray.” So Jesus did it in a very common language. We see in Matthew 6:7, 8 that repetition and formality are unnecessary. By Jesus’ time, prayer had become kind of ritualized and formalized. Can you imagine if I went home to Caroline and said, “Dear Caroline, I love and magnify thy most magnificent name”? She would look at me like I had flipped out of my mind. Jesus is saying that prayer is just conversation. We don’t need repetitious phrases or formulas.

I remember when our kids were little; you know how parents are the first day your kids go to kindergarten, what a big deal that is? How you take their picture? We still have the pictures of the first day they went to kindergarten. And I remember putting Kristin, she is our oldest, on the bus. She was going to turn 5 on September 12, so she was still like at the end of age 4. So, I put my first baby on the bus, came to church, and shared that I had just put Kristin on the bus. One of the godmothers of the church said, “Hey, did you pray the blood of Jesus over that baby before you put her on the bus?”  I went like, “Oh no!” I felt like I had done it wrong. But, how can you pray wrong? I remember one of Peter’s prayers was just “Jesus save me,” three words—but it worked. Sometimes you don’t need many words, maybe no words. Look at Matthew 6: 8: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” My dad, I’m proud of him, is a World War II veteran. He was in all five major battles. Slept in fox holes and trenches, and got frozen feet. He still has problems with his feet from that. But in the 18 years I lived at home, I never once had to ask my dad for food. Didn’t take any words, it just was always there. Your father knows what you need before you ask him. Matter of fact, my dad made me eat junk I didn’t even want to eat like green stuff, salads and so forth. “You don’t eat that you don’t get dessert.” Dessert was part of the deal in my house. In 18 years I never once remember asking my parents, my dad, for clothes; they were just there. He worked hard so that they would be there. I didn’t have to ask for them. Maybe when I was a teenager I asked for styles, like bell bottom jeans. Not once did I ever ask my dad to take me to the doctor. Matter of fact I begged not to go. In my day, every time you went to the doctor they thought you should get a shot in your behind whether you needed it or not. And they weren’t these little small disposable needles; they were the reusable big glass honkers. And, because they were reusable with those big needles, some of those needles got dull after they were in so many people’s behinds. I never had to say a word for anything I needed, my father knew everything. Now I did ask for some stuff that I wanted—guitar, music amps, a motorcycle. Now he didn’t let me have the motorcycle, but I had more than one guitar and one amplifier. Isn’t that an amazing kind of thing? We don’t need to be formal in prayer; we don’t need a lot of words. Sometimes we don’t even know what words to pray. That’s okay. The word says that the Spirit intercedes for us with words that only God understands. Sometimes my prayer is just directing my thoughts to God. Sometimes I don’t know how to pray for you, so I simply look at you and then look to God, God knows your need. Are we on the same page?

The Bible tells us we are to pray continually. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says: “Pray continually, giving thanks in all circumstances for it is God’s will in Christ Jesus.” You are to pray regardless of what circumstance you may find yourself in. You may find yourself unemployed. You may find yourself diagnosed with cancer. Now God doesn’t cause all things, but I know this God is able to make all things work out for the good “to those who love him and are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). So regardless of where I am, I am just thanking God because I know who is in control. You might need direction about anything; it may be about work, it may be about parenting, it may be about a dating relationship. James says that if we need wisdom, ask. Don’t you think that somebody who loves you like this, who calls you his friend, the bride of Christ, will answer? In Matthew 7:7-8, Jesus says that you are to ask, seek and knock. Everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds. Everyone who knocks, the doors will be opened. And then, pray for the needs of others. The Bible says that the prayers of the righteous person accomplishes much. Yesterday I just opened the church directory and started praying for people whom God had placed on my heart. And after I prayed for them, I called them on the telephone.

Listen to this, this is the confidence that we have approaching God that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. We don’t have to keep saying it. And if we know that he hears us, that whatever we ask, we know that we have already received it. Do I know if it is God’s will to bless you? You bet I do! So all I have to do when I ask is to thank God. Do I know if it’s God’s will that my children walk in all of his ways? I sure do. So even in those four years that were kind of challenging with my daughter, I thanked him ahead of time, because I knew “the check was already in the mail.” We have to take seriously praying for each other, because the prayers of the righteous person accomplish much.

We are going to do some directional prayer today. I am going to direct you in prayer, and you are going to silently pray for where I direct you. At the end, we are going to have a time of thanksgiving. At that point you can either silently pray, or pray softly out loud. Okay? So let’s assume a position or a state of preparedness for prayer.

Let’s pray for fathers, it may be your dad, it may be your husband, but pray that fathers will be courageous enough to be models of godly men for their children, for their grandchildren and for generations to come. Now pray specifically for your dad, whether he is living, or deceased and thank God for his life. Many of our fathers are war veterans, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam, and Gulf. Thank God for his service. Some here have painful memories of a father whom they have been hurt or abandoned by. Ask Jesus to allow you to see your father through his eyes. For we in our humanness alone can’t understand their brokenness. Now pray for your family. Picture faces, and then just direct your thoughts to God. Pray for family members who need to experience salvation. Pray for family members who need to be revived. Pray for your future generations, for God’s blessing in their lives and that they may walk in all of the ways of Jesus. Pray specifically for a person who you know needs healing. Pray for the oil spill in the Gulf and for all of the families and businesses that have been affected by it. And pray for the wellbeing of God’s creation. Pray for a personal need or healing in your own life. God’s word directs us to pray continually and to give thanks in all circumstances. So now just silently or out loud name specific things you are thankful for.

Father God, we are thankful and grateful for this time of formal prayer as we come together to remember that this is not about religion but a relationship. We pray our prayer becomes a continuing conversation as we leave this place throughout the week. We pray this together in Jesus’ name, Amen.