This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 11, 1988.
This morning our scripture is Matthew 6, beginning at verse 5, and we will read through verse 15. This is Matthew 6, beginning with verse 5. Hear the word of God. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, Use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, Neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Let’s pray together.
O Lord, how our desire is not simply for ourselves, that the word would be precious to us and have its full impact upon us. We think of congregations that we know and love, those throughout this presbytery, those that may well be of other denominations where the gospel is proclaimed. And we plead, Lord, with you on their behalf for the servants that you have raised up to stand in pulpits and proclaim the word of grace that your people may be encouraged, that sinners may be convicted, that those who do not believe might believe, having been brought to believe by the effectual work of your Holy Spirit. We do plead with you on behalf, then, of these ministries that you would be pleased, our God, to build up courage and confidence and assurance in and through those activities. We pray, our God, nothing less for ourselves, for we would turn to you, for surely there is no one else to whom we can turn. and we do turn our God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen. prayer, the activity of prayer. Prayer itself is in desperate straits. I have reference to the activity of individuals. I have reference to the corporate enterprise of the church. Is prayer the lost dimension of devotion? Has it been eaten away from the life of the believer, from the life of the Church, because of pressing demand?
A pastor that I know stops praying. because he finds invariably that that experience of prayer only mercilessly compounds his frustration. So compounding his frustration that he feels worse after he’s prayed than when he had begun. Now, not that his feelings are to the measure of anything really, but Why subject himself to that torment, that torture regularly?
I know of a steel worker. In his forties, battered by his responsibilities at work, his struggle for and with his family, who confided in a close friend, I stopped praying. I don’t even bother. I know a housewife who once wondered out loud to her shocked husband.
Why should I pray anyway? God knows everything doesn’t he? There’s a teenager shedding the coil of her dependence upon her parents, who now in these mature years thinks that prayer is simply a sentimental superstitious habit of childhood. She is now more comfortable spending her time with her fantasies than praying.
There are the complications for prayer. You simply don’t know my schedule. You don’t know how things are at my house. When am I going to get any time to pray or There simply isn’t any place in my house where I can pray. Prayer. Prayer experiencing then. This kind of pressure. prayer looked upon increasingly as something that is unnecessary. Something that is a formality possibly.
But something that is not essential to the well-being of the life of the believer and the well-being of the church. is the prayer meeting, for instance, something that within the next twenty years will die, will die uniformly in the churches in this country. Now many of you came out of churches, mainline churches, that were of the habit of paying their ministers Exorbitant salaries for conducting one service a week, that’s Sunday morning. And many of you left those churches because you perceived that there was a deadness there that simply was not going to be corrected. And one of the evidences of that deadness According to you and your assessment was the fact that the people did not engage in any meaningful prayer activity. The midweek prayer service was something that was long gone, long forgotten. We observe things a little closer to home then. I can ask the question about Grace Church. Will the prayer meeting of Grace Church survive? Not the next twenty years, but the next year! Yes, this is an advertisement. This is a promotional appeal. And really, I shouldn’t laugh about it.
What about our Protestant and Reformed churches? At one time, those churches passionately committed themselves to prayer. An installation service of pastor or officers within a church could not pass without a concerted effort of prayer, a season of prayer in which the congregation gave itself to prayer. Not just for five minutes, not for ten, not even for an hour, but for an entire week. Can you believe it? There was once a time in the life of the church, Protestant, Reformed, Calvinistic congregations, in which you could point to a number of individuals in that church who had given themselves to a life of prayer. Modern day Anna, if you will.
That was their habit of life. We hear the stories of pastors and people who gave themselves to prayer. Was it Martin Luther who said, I don’t think I can live a day unless I begin it with three hours of prayer? We’re worn out by that, I think. getting through the day, a matter of having it grounded in three hours of prayer. We have difficulty concentrating for ten minutes.
After all, we’ve been convinced of what now has been called the balanced life. The balanced life includes no extremes. You don’t want to give yourself too much to any one thing. And in this approach to the Christian life, prayer has become merely the salt and pepper, the seasoning for a diet of severe activism, extreme activism. Prayer, after all, must fit into our schedule. It must be part of the program or a program in order to be judged worthwhile by us.
More and more, the noise that comes forth from congregations is not the noise of praise and prayer from the people of God, pleading with God, imploring Him, making their requests known unto Him. Rather, the noise that increasingly is coming forth from churches, from congregations, is the noise of committee meetings, socials, and planning sessions for the next campaign or enterprise. In the church setting, prayer becomes a reflex. Well, of course, we always begin and close our meetings with prayer.
Simply perfunctory. Or it becomes a useful and even superstitious reaction. Well, There’s always the possibility that things won’t go well, so let’s pray and baptize our efforts with prayer. And on top of all of this, we find ourselves in a world particularly unsuited to prayer.
For instance, We have known leaders of the church who are of a liberal stripe or whom prayer has been some sort of romantic exercise, inspirational exercise. We know those who have adopted a style of life in which prayer plays no part at all. I had the dubious opportunity to sit in a classroom of Princeton Theological Seminary a few years ago and listen to one of the most prestigious ministers of the churches in New York City. And he informed that class of worshipful students that he never prayed. And he informed them of that boastingly. He said, after all, my life is my prayer. And if God isn’t satisfied with that, well, then that’s too bad for God. I guess that was the next line.
Now, before we get too hard on the liberals and the pastor from New York City, I would remind you of a little survey that I took a few years ago in prayer meeting right here in this building. The question was, apart from prayers at mealtime, apart from prayers where you are part of a group such as church, do you regularly pray? Could I have a show of hands? This is an Orthodox Presbyterian church. There were officers of the church present at that prayer meeting that night, and not one hand, not one hand went up. Now how is it with you? Now, I can’t be too hard on you. If I’m not praying at the offices of the church, I’m praying, what can we expect of you? You would do well to set a good example for us and get us back on track.
Have we lost our confidence in prayer? Have we lost our motivation for it? Do we no longer understand it? as it becomes something that is utterly ordinary and perfunctory for us, a mere formality, something we hardly think about, let alone practice. But here we are considering Jesus’ words in Matthew 6.
And as we introduce ourselves to these words by Jesus, I would like to put before you two principles. And I hope that these two principles will be very helpful for you in focusing your life with regard to prayer. In fact, I’m hoping that these principles might put before you the proper ground for your own prayer life and motivation for you in prayer. Out of that arising a confidence and assurance in your prayers. The first principle is this.
The coming of Jesus Christ brings to us an entirely new day of prayer. The coming of Jesus Christ brings to us an entirely new day of prayer, with its own motivation and its own constraints, its own glory. Think now of the reflex that we find in the New Testament after Christ has completed his ministry, after he has died and been raised again.
We get a statement like this from the Apostle Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5.17, you know it, a very short verse, pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing.
Now I want to ask you a question, do you hear any statement like that out of the Old Testament. Now, please understand, I do not mean to suggest to you that the people of the Old Testament were not afraid that they didn’t pray. They did pray, but you don’t have any prescription that approaches that one that Paul gives you in First Thessalonians five pray without. Now, you might ask yourself the question, How in the world is Paul come to this statement? How does he arrive at this statement? He arrives at it because he is reflecting on prayer in light of the work of Jesus Christ. He is reflecting on prayer in light of the coming of Jesus Christ and what that coming has meant. That admonition by Paul is like unto one given by Christ himself.
You have the statement by Jesus in the garden to his disciples, Matthew 26, verse 41. Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. Those two statements, they’re now possible, you see, as Christ himself is speaking about a perpetual, continual posture for Christian living. Our disposition is always to be one that is ready to and engaged in prayer. I have said to you that this first principle, then. Places before us the significance of the coming of Christ for an entirely new day of prayer. That statement by Jesus in the garden. then comes to his disciples as an instruction to them as how they might meet the press of circumstances which they face as those who have been united to him. The constraint upon them now to pray is because they are united to the one who, while he was making his progress towards the cross and to the fulfillment and consummation of his ministry, he prayed without ceasing.
This is the missing dynamic for prayer, and this is the missing motivation for you in your praying, you see. If you lose sight of the fact that you are united to Christ in this new day of prayer, That motivation, that ground, that foundation is obscured and lost. You do not see it, and your prayers might as well come out of a Buddhist temple somewhere, a Jewish synagogue, as be in a Christian church or in a Christian environment. It is specifically that union with Christ that makes prayer utterly distinct now, and in light of the fulfillment of his ministry on your behalf.
For your praying as you watch against temptation is merely an entering into the praying of that Christ who has prayed in that way as he faced temptation himself. But the Christian life is not just a matter of watching and praying, as we would then make our way, as Christ did, towards the culmination of our lives. Our praying is also informed by the fulfillment of Christ’s ministry in the resurrection.
What stands behind Paul’s statement in 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, pray without ceasing? Once more, it’s this whole matter of union with Christ. Don’t you understand? The One to whom you are united not only prayed while He was facing the cross, but now in heaven, He prays without ceasing for you. The reason why you can’t persist in your praying, the reason why the foundation crumbles, why you lose your way, is because you do not have clearly before you your union with Christ. You are joined to Him.
A new day has come. And it’s not a matter of you being sustained by your own efforts, as if we were reintroducing some principle of worth righteousness here for you. You have to struggle all over again in order to gain approval with God through your prayers. Not at all. You see what’s happening.
The gift of grace to you is Christ himself. He has been perfectly successful in watching and praying as he made his way towards the cross. and that perfection of prayer is at your disposal. You enter into his prayers. You enter into his praying activity. It’s not as if you stand out here, separated from him. It is as if you have been brought right into him, and the power of his prayer life has become the power of your own. You are united to him, nothing less than that is taking place now with regard to the heavenly session of Christ. Have you not been told by the word that he makes continual intercession for you?
Your union with him draws you within the circumference of his prayer life now. That is where the drive for prayer comes. You want to hear it from the Apostle Paul? He’s writing to some Colossian Christians and to some Laodicean Christians. You can read all about it in Colossians chapter 2, the first verse.
These people have never even seen his face, yet he pours himself out continually for them. He prays for them without ceasing. Where in the world does this guy get the energy, the motivation to pray for people that he’s never seen? Why I have a difficult time praying for those. I know. I have a difficult enough time praying for you. And here’s a guy who’s praying for people that have never seen his face.
He’s doing that continually, The only ground for activity and devotion like that is union with Christ. So you see there’s another one whose face the Colossians and Laodiceans have never seen. And it’s Christ. And the very pattern and power of the Apostle’s prayer line is that of Christ’s. So real is that union to the Apostle that the Apostle can’t help but be like Christ.
And that’s the first principle that I want to put before you, and I won’t speak extensively on the second, but just pointed out for you here. Not only does the coming of Christ bring an entirely new day of prayer. But this new day brings with it. That exposure commensurate with the kingdom of heaven.
That makes it plain that there is a practice of righteousness, a piety that has nothing to do with what Jesus is talking about. There is a practice of piety within Christian circles that is out of touch with the significance of the coming of Christ, as that coming has heralded a new day of prayer. There is a practice of piety that is eminently self-centered.
Don’t tell me how long you pray. I had to sit and listen to a minister one in which he told his congregation that he had finally achieved what he thought was unachievable. He had been able to pray for the entire night. There is a piety, you see, that parades There’s a piety that is meant for applause. There’s a piety that calls attention to itself and knows nothing. Of that motivation. That undergirds the experience of the Apostle Paul in his prayer. That union between him. And to say. which has as its objective no reward in this world but the pleasure of the God who is above and presently unseen.
These principles then for you as you think about prayer and in the weeks to come we will be reviewing Jesus statements here more specifically. But hold on to the coming of Christ brings an entirely new day of prayer. And there is a practice of piety that has nothing nothing to do whatsoever with what Jesus is talking.
O Lord, we ask that we might precede then even our approach to you with that affirmation of our union with Christ, that we might see ourselves as united to the one who prayed perpetually as he faced the ordeal that would conclude his life and ministry. And may we also see ourselves united to that one who is raised, who even now makes continual intercession for us. And out of this, O Lord, may it be plain and clear that the power for our prayers and our power to pray does not arise from ourselves, but it is found in Him, who is that sufficient and adequate Savior, whose name we bless. We pray these things
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