Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

The following quotation will suggest the right background for this introduction: ‘In the East the following phenomenon is often observed.

Where the desert touches a river-valley or oasis, the sand is in a continual state of drift from the wind, and it is this drift which is the real cause of the barrenness of such portions of the desert at least as abut upon the fertile land.

For under the rain, or by infiltration of the river, plants often spring through the sand, and there is sometimes promise of considerable fertility.

It never lasts.

Down comes the periodic drift, and life is stunted or choked out.

But set down a rock on the sand, and see the difference its presence makes.

After a few showers, to the lee-ward side of this some blades will spring up; if you have patience, you will see in time a garden.

How has the boulder produced this?

Simply by arresting the drift.’

(George Adam Smith.)

And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest,- as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

(Isaiah xxxii.

2.)

Our Lord Jesus Christ is just that rock to God’s children.

[Oswald Chambers, Christian Disciplines: Containing the Disciplines of Divine Guidance, Suffering, Peril, Prayer, Loneliness, Patience (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996).]

Main Thought:

Who Hears Your Prayers has everything to do with who answers them:

When Only Others Hear, the Rewards Remain Only Here (Matt.

6:5)

When Only the Father Hears, the Reward Is Openly Given (Matt.

6:6)

When Only Yourself Hears, the Result Is Finite (Matt.

6:7-8)

Sub-intro:

Two Contrasts: Publicity and Verbosity versus Privacy and Simplicity (6:5–8)1 [1 David L. Turner, Matthew, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 185.]

The self-sufficient do not pray, the self-satisfied will not pray, the self-righteous cannot pray.

No man is greater than his prayer life.

~ Leonard Ravenhill [Bruce B. Barton, Matthew, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996), 113.]

Exegetical Outline-

I. Thou Shalt Not Pray as a Hypocrite (Matt.

6:5)

A. Prayers May Be Religious, but Unavailing (Matt.

6:5a)

B. These Religious Prayers Will Be Rewarded, But Only Temporally (Matt.

6:5b)

II.

Humble Prayers Are Heard Prayers (Matt.

6:6)

A. The Request Is Made in Secret (Matt.

6:6a)

B. But the Reward Comes in the Open (Matt.

6:6b)

III.

Help for the Mistaken Mystic (Matt.

6:7-8)

A. Mystery, Babble-On, the Great (Matt.

6:7)

B. The Father Is Mindful Before Even Being Asked (Matt.

6:8)

IV.

The Heavenly Model for Holy Prayer (Matt.

6:9-15)

Body:

I. Misdirected Prayers (Matt.

6:5)

Jesus is not deriding any particular posture, for in Scripture people prayed in every position—standing (Luke 18:11, 13), sitting (2 Sam 7:18), kneeling (Luke 22:41), and prostrate on the ground (Matt 26:39).

Standing with hands upraised was the normal form for prayer, and kneeling or prostrating was done in time of serious need.

Yet it is not the posture but the motive that matters.

[Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, vol. 1, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 224–225.]

Dr. Robert A. Cook has often said, “All of us have one routine prayer in our system; and once we get rid of it, then we can really start to pray!”

I have noticed this, not only in my own praying, but often when I have conducted prayer meetings.

With some people, praying is like putting the needle on a phonograph record and then forgetting about it.

But God does not answer insincere prayers.

[Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 26.]

A. Recognized

Religion devoid of a relationship is like a pacifier that a baby works hard to suck on, but from which no real nutrition flows.289[Tony

Evans, Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More than 30 Years of Preaching and Public Speaking (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2009), 101.]

Religion, False

Long ago, a pastor was visiting at a couple’s new home out in the country.

The pastor spent the night.

He was awakened the next morning by the soft voice of a soprano singing, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

He was impressed by the piety of the young hostess, since she evidently began her day in such a religious manner.

At breakfast he spoke to her about it and told her how pleased he was.

“Oh,” she replied, “that’s the hymn I boil the eggs by; three verses for soft and five for hard.”1123

[Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 300.]

We may even have too much to do in God’s house, and so hinder our prayers, by being like Martha, cumbered with much serving.

I never heard of any one who was cumbered with much praying.

1192.508

[Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Exploring the Mind and Heart of the Prince of Preachers: Five-Thousand Illustrations Selected from the Works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Oswego, IL: Fox River Press, 2005), 532.]

The Pharisees prayed not in the Temple where God revealed Himself in the Shekinah glory that was manifested at the Mercy Seat.

They went out into the public market place.

We would readily conclude that this is a place perhaps the least conducive to praying of any place they could possibly have chosen, but it did accomplish what they set out to do; to impress people with their piety.

So, they stood with their hands lifted heavenward, but addressed their prayers to the people who were passing by.

Our Lord called them hypocrites because prayer is fellowship between a believer and God.

It is not to be a communique between man and men.

[J.

Dwight Pentecost, Design for Discipleship: Discovering God’s Blueprint for the Christian Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996), 78.]

B. Rewarded

The Lord tries to impress His hearers with the truth that prayer is essentially a private communication between a child and his Father.

Two who are in love require privacy to properly communicate.

Little real communications is possible in public.

Volumes can be communicated in moments when there is privacy.

In the busyness of life, communication with the Father is impossible unless there is privacy.

That is why the Lord said if we are to communicate with the Father we must go to our room and shut the door.

One prying eye can spoil communication.

As soon as we are conscious of one observer, the privacy necessary to intimate communication is gone, and we become conscious of the observer rather than the Father with whom we are talking.

Therefore the Pharisees could not communicate with the Father when they gathered an audience to hear their prayers.

Prayer is private communication.

[J.

Dwight Pentecost, Design for Living: Lessons in Holiness from the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999), 137.]

II.

Meaningful Prayers (Matt.

6:6)

A. The Place

R. V. G. Tasker points out that the Greek word for the ‘room’ into which we are to withdraw to pray (tameion) ‘was used for the store-room where treasures might be kept’.

The implication may be, then, that ‘there are treasures already awaiting’ us when we pray.2

[R.

V. G. Tasker The Gospel according to St Matthew by R. V. G. Tasker (Tyndale New Testament Commentary; IVP, 1961) 2 P. 73. [John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 134.]

Our Lord’s first lesson in the school of prayer was, and still is: “ENTER INTO THY CLOSET” (Matt.

6:6).

The “closet” is the closed place, where we are shut in alone with God, where the human spirit waits upon an unseen Presence, learns to recognize Him who is a Spirit, and cultivates His acquaintance, fellowship, and friendship.

Everything else, therefore, depends upon prayer.

To the praying soul there becomes possible the faith which is the grasp of the human spirit upon the realities and verities of the unseen world.