Matthew 6: Praying to God as a Father Who Sees in Secret

Introduction

"We can only speak to God because God has spoken to us first." With these words, William Philip, pastor of The Tron Church in Glasgow, opens a short autumn series on how to pray. It accompanies a book in preparation, How We Pray, the sequel to Why We Pray, reissued last year.

Prayer is not a human initiative, he explains. It is a response to God's call in the gospel, "the audible expression of a real faith." Once we understand that, another question arises: how do we pray? To answer it, he opens the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6.

Before showing how to pray, Jesus shows how not to pray. Two "necessary negatives" prepare the way for one great positive: speaking to God personally, as to our Father in heaven.

Message Outline

1. We Can Only Pray Because God Has Spoken

• The preacher thinks of the "Try prayer" banners seen on buses. What can that slogan mean, other than a human effort or a deity of our own imagination? It might as well say: "Try anything."
• We can only pray in a meaningful way when we think rightly about the one true God and the one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ.
• We were created for communion with God. Our rebellious hearts broke that relationship, but through Jesus Christ, God brought us back into his family and adopted us as his children. "That is why we can pray."
• The UK tax guide runs to tens of thousands of pages. God the Son, by contrast, gave only a few lines to teach us to pray to God the Father. "Isn't that wonderful?" Some Christians make prayer complicated. Jesus does not.

2. The Context: Righteousness That Comes Through Relationship

• In Luke 11, the Lord's Prayer answers the disciples' request: "Lord, teach us to pray." In Matthew, it sits within the Sermon on the Mount, whose theme is righteousness.
• Jesus says that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20), and even: "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). How could sinners ever manage that?
• To live out the heavenly morality of chapter 5, we need the heavenly mindset of chapter 6, which comes only from a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ: "But seek first God's Kingdom, and his righteousness" (Matthew 6:33).
• "Righteousness is never about me." According to Jesus, it is about relationship. The first words of the Lord's Prayer sum it up: "Our Father in heaven."
• Twelve times or more in this chapter, Jesus speaks of "your Father": he rewards (verses 1, 4, 6), he knows (verse 8), he is heavenly (verse 14), he knows what you need (verse 32). "Are we beginning to get the message?"

3. The First Negative: Not the Fraudulent Prayer of Religiosity

• In verses 5 and 6, Jesus targets the hypocrites who love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen. One translation puts it this way: do not make a theatrical production of your prayers.
• This kind of prayer seeks to sway people's opinion and to build a reputation for piety. It does not meet God. Jesus calls it hypocrisy.
• Our Western culture loves to denounce religious hypocrisy, sometimes rightly, as with the abuse scandals. But it turns a blind eye to the hypocrisy of politicians and the media. Still, it is easy for religiosity, even Christianized religiosity, to eclipse a real relationship with God.
• The pastor remembers the funeral of Pope John Paul II, watched on television during a rainy holiday in Spain: huge crowds, robes, colors, processions. Or the big shows of televangelists. Is God sitting in his box seat, applauding? No: the Father sees in secret.
• Our evangelical piety is not immune. "I am always at the prayer meeting, I am." He was once told that attendance at the prayer meeting dropped quite a lot when he was on vacation. He hopes that is no longer true. But the question remains: whose gaze and whose praise are we seeking?
• Religious prayer is like someone who drops important names: an acquaintance mostly called him to tell him who he had seen lately. Jesus says: if you pray like that, you already have your reward.
• In a real relationship, you want to be with someone because you love them. A young groom does not need to be rewarded for going on his honeymoon: that is his reward.
• You cannot have both: you cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), and your treasure is either in heaven or on earth (Matthew 6:19-20). True prayer does not seek an earthly reputation but a heavenly relationship with God.

4. The Second Negative: Not the Frantic Prayer of the Pagans

• In verses 7 and 8, Jesus says not to heap up empty words like the pagans, who think they will be heard for their many words.
• The Pharisee tries to manipulate human opinion to gain a reputation. The pagan tries to manipulate God to gain goods on earth. One wants people's praise, the other wants their possessions. At bottom, both want to use God.
• "For the Gentiles seek after all these things" (Matthew 6:32). The big shopping center parking lots filling up right now are, he says, the great pagan temples of our culture.
• In India, where he travels every year, he sees this frantic prayer everywhere: shrines, offerings, endless words, rituals to attract luck, karma or wealth.
• Our secular culture is not so different in a crisis: "There are no atheists in foxholes." Since the death of Princess Diana, flowers, vigils and candles have multiplied, with a popular Christianity, mantras or the search for miracles.
• We too, facing a cancer, the marriage we dream of or the career we want, can try to bend God with our many words. That prayer forgets that God is a Father, not a malevolent being to be feared.
• The Father provides for all our needs, not necessarily all our wants. Your children would like chocolate and candy for breakfast. A loving parent gives them what they need, because he knows.
• The preacher admits that he has prayed this way himself: "Let's hold a prayer marathon, a whole night, and be exhausted for the rest of the week. God will really be impressed by our endurance."

5. The Positive: The Family Prayer of a Personal Relationship

• In Greek, the contrast in verse 9 is sharper: "You, therefore, pray like this: Our Father in heaven." We pray as sons speaking to their Father.
• Eugene Peterson renders it this way: with a God like that who loves you, you can pray very simply. The simplicity of prayer reflects the simplicity of a personal relationship.
• To a stranger, you write a long, careful letter. To a longtime friend, a single word is enough. With a close friend, the pastor sometimes sends one word, and the other replies with a simple exclamation mark. After fifty years of marriage, a raised eyebrow says a great deal.
• When he worked for the Proclamation Trust in London, he would come home late from conferences. He would go upstairs to kiss his young children asleep. Sometimes one of them would turn over, put his arms around his neck, say "Daddy," and fall back asleep. "That was all I needed." That is what "Our Father in heaven" says to God.
• A brother from the church, who had cancer and has since died, confided to him at the hospice that he was too confused to pray: he would get to "Our Father" and could not remember what came next. The pastor answered: "That is the part that really matters."
• After a long day of preaching alongside John Wesley, George Whitefield is said to have thrown off his boots, lain down and said: "Lord, everything is all right between us, isn't it? Good night." Then he fell asleep. "That is real prayer."
• William Still used to say: "Real prayer means that my whole thought life is steeped in his presence." Every word of the Father fills our thoughts, and each of our thoughts answers him with a great yes.

6. Do You Know This Father?

• According to Jesus, prayer is simply putting into words something real between us and our Father.
• Asking whether you know this simplicity and this joy in prayer is asking whether you truly know the heavenly Father through Jesus, his Son. "I hope you do. If you do not, I hope you soon will. And it is possible."
• He closes with Peterson's paraphrase of verses 7 to 9: the world is full of so-called prayer warriors who know nothing about prayer, with their formulas and techniques for getting what they want from God. "It is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need."
• In his closing prayer, he asks God to keep us from becoming Pharisees or pagans, who try to manipulate others or to manipulate him, and to draw us to himself so that we love him and rejoice in him forever.

Key Takeaways

• Prayer is not a human initiative. It is the response to a God who spoke to us first in Jesus Christ.
• True prayer does not try to impress others. The Father sees in secret, and being with him is already the reward.
• True prayer does not try to manipulate God with a multitude of words. He knows what we need before we ask.
• Prayer begins when we speak to God personally: "Our Father in heaven."
• A deep relationship makes prayer simple. Even when too tired to go any further, saying "Our Father" is saying what matters.

Personal Application

1. When you pray in public or at the prayer meeting, whose gaze are you seeking: God's, other Christians', a leader's?
2. In what situation in your life do you tend to multiply words to bend God?
3. Do you trust your Father with your needs, even when he does not give you everything you want?
4. Do you take moments in secret, with the door closed, simply to be with God?
5. Do you truly know God as your Father through Jesus Christ? If not, what is holding you back from coming to him?

Verses Cited

• Matthew 6:1-15
• 1 Timothy 2:5
• Luke 11:1-4
• Matthew 5:20
• Matthew 5:48
• Matthew 6:19-24
• Matthew 6:32-33

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Jesus begin by saying how not to pray?

William Philip speaks of "necessary negatives" that shed light on the positive. Jesus first sets aside the fraudulent prayer of religiosity, which seeks to be seen by people (Matthew 6:5-6), then the frantic prayer of the pagans, who heap up words to get what they want (Matthew 6:7-8). Both try to use God.

What does it mean to pray "Our Father in heaven"?

For William Philip, these first words sum up everything: true prayer begins when we speak to God personally. It reflects the relationship God has given us in Jesus Christ. Our God is in heaven, and he is our Father: he sees in secret, he knows what we need and he cares for us.

Do we need many words for God to hear us?

No. Jesus says the pagans imagine they will be heard for their many words, while the Father knows what we need before we ask him (Matthew 6:7-8). As between two longtime friends, a deep relationship makes prayer simple. For the preacher, saying "Our Father" is already saying what truly matters.