Prayer? Matthew 6, 5-8

Prayer is a funny thing. Have you wondered what it is and why people do it? Does something become a prayer if we add “Amen” to the end? Or if someone says “let’s pray” at the beginning? Or we all shut our eyes and put our hands together?
It may surprise you to know that about ¾ of people who would not describe themselves as religious admit to praying most weeks. Remember the “Pray 4 Muamba” phenomenon?

When Ali and I got married it was an important step in our road to coming back into a relationship with Christ. Being one of those thoroughly modern couples, we were happy with our level of commitment to each other without any need for a legal certificate or anything. But our hearts began to stir within us, and we reached a stage where we both wanted to get married…in church. Although neither of us would call ourselves Christian, we felt it important to make our vows in the name of the One who made the universe, rather than just sign a bit of paper. So we were married, inviting God into our relationship.
And things began to change.
Not long afterwards I had a really busy day doing all sorts of things around the area. I got home early evening with our sons, and as I made them their tea I realised that I had lost my wedding ring. I realised that I would need to retrace my steps, but as Ali was working a late shift, I could not even begin that process until she got home at 10pm. It was a long and frustrating wait, but as she came home I gave her her supper and said “I’m off out to look for my ring”. It was dark. I had a small torch. It was late. I started looking under the bonnet of our car and in the gutters all the way up the road. No joy. I then went round to a friend’s who I had helped with his car earlier. Again, I looked under the bonnet, in every nook and cranny, in the gutters, up the road etc. We got his neighbours to move their cars. It was after midnight now. Finally I drove over to the park where I had taken the boys earlier to play on the swings. I felt really dejected. It was a massive park. We had played all round it. My torch battery was almost extinct, giving a candle-like glow. It was raining and pitch dark.
I began to pray. I said “Lord God, we have trusted in You and sealed our relationship in your name. That ring is a symbol of your involvement in our lives. If I find that ring, I will know that you are real and I will be your servant from now on”
I walked over to the play area and as I got there the clouds parted just for an instant and the moon shone through. I looked at my feet and saw a silvery glint. I bent down, and there, trodden down below ground level and barely visible in any conditions, was my ring.
It may have been a coincidence, but since becoming a Christian I‘ve found it amazing how many coincidences happen when we pray.

So is praying just something we do when we’re in a spot of bother? It’s more than that. It’s the most important thing we can do. It is how we can develop a relationship with our father in heaven. In Matthew chapter 6 Jesus talked about prayer. Notice that Jesus doesn’t start this sentence “if you pray…” His assumption is that anyone who wants to know more of God will pray. “When you pray…” he starts. Jesus knows that to be a disciple we absolutely have to pray. It isn’t an option.
So this passage is not encouraging us to pray, it is telling us how to do it, and he said that it’s something we should do without showing off. We don’t have to worry about whether we are good at it or not, or about what other people might think. I have met so many people who admit to not praying much because they don’t know what to say that would sound good. It’s not about what other people hear and see. It is about us and god, and it is something to do with our relationship with God. Jesus goes on to teach us us what we now call the lord’s prayer which we will look at next week, and it begins “our father…”, pointing towards our family relationship with God.
Why bother praying? Surely God knows what we think and want and need, so there’s no need to ask, right? But prayer is about building our relationship with God. Its not much of a relationship if we don’t communicate. We pray because it keeps us in relationship with God. Think about all the important relationships in your life. The way that we strengthen our relationships is that we communicate, perhaps by getting together, or by speaking or writing or touching. If we stop communicating then our relationships will be weakened, and if we stop altogether then the relationship is broken (at least until we get in touch once more). So we pray because it deepens our relationship with God.
Another reason to pray is simply that it does change things. When people pray, things happen. Jesus said “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you”. When people pray things happen. We need to remember that God is outside of time and space, and so hears all prayers simultaneously. It’s not like we convince him to change his mind, it is that his will becomes more obvious here on earth as we pray.

One of the main objections to praying often comes from people who say that they prayed for something and it didn’t happen. When my mate Mark became ill and died a few years back it was despite hundreds of people asking for God to heal him. Was God just not listening?
There are all sorts of reasons why we may think a prayer has not been heard. One may be that our hearts are not right with God, we are holding on to stuff, or we are just asking for stuff to meet our own desires. James 4,3 when you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. It’s important that we spend time working on our relationship with God, through prayer, study and other Christians, in order to be better able to discern his will for us and the world. I want a Porsche, but I know that it isn’t God’s will that I have one, so I don’t pray for one.
Also, sometimes God doesn’t seem to answer our prayers because what we have asked for isn’t good for us. We may pray to be successful in a job interview, but actually be better suited to something else and in need of a shove in that direction. God may seem to be ignoring our prayers when actually he is saying “no” or perhaps “wait”. He doesn’t always say yes. I do not understand why my friend died. I’m gutted. It makes no sense. He was on fire for Jesus, had a lovely wife and three young kids, training to be a minister. I know that I am faced with the choice of just stopping believing, or believing that God is just nasty. Or I can say “I’m going to go on believing in spite of the fact that I don’t understand, in spite of my pain and confusion. I will trust you Lord” I doubt if I will ever understand-in this life at least. We can never fully know God’s will, but we can hope that we’ll understand when we get to meet him face to face.

 Last point, when and where do we pray? Should we do it in the morning or at night? Must we be in church? Actually, we can pray anytime, any place. We can pray all day. We are maintaining a relationship with God, so should make time for it whenever we can. I used to ride a motorbike, and used to spend two hours a day on it. As I rode I used to say the Jesus prayer over and over. When I got places I often found that I needed to find a pen and paper as ideas had come to me that needed recording, even though I’d been doing the talking. Jesus also warns us here against public shows of looking holy. There’s no need to involve others, or even to let them know what you’re doing. Praying on your own is great. It’s between you and God, so just go and do it somewhere quiet if you can. Bible notes can help, like "daily bread" or "everyday with Jesus". And there are also many examples in the bible of people praying together. It feels a bit weird doing it out loud with other people. I remember first time I did it. I’d not long finished an Alpha course and went with a friend to a meeting of local church leaders who were discussing how to make church more accessible. I didn’t know this, and actually we were sort of gatecrashing, but they let us in and we listened. I felt moved to pray out loud, and prayed that my friend and I could be a blessing to the church and the community. We left that meeting as co-leaders of a house group for young adults. We were also the only members, but within a year we had eighteen members, an 800% growth rate. Prayer is at the heart of Christianity, because it is about a relationship with God. That’s why it’s the most important activity of our lives.