Matthew 6:5-9 (New King James Version) 5 “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.[a] 7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. So there was a little boy in church down in Virginia. A church not so different from ours, just down in Virginia where everyone speaks like James Hinchey. Maybe this story’s about him when he was little. I don’t know. Anyway, this little boy, we shall say that he was right at that age where he probably knew better.You know what that age is right? This little boy who was just of the age to know better, was having a very difficult time on this day behaving the way children are supposed to in church. By the way, if you haven’t noticed, I have very tolerant behavioral standards for children in church. It’s a lot to ask of a child, it’s a lot to ask of an adult, to sit still for an hour or so. Stand up once and a while, sing a few songs, and listen to that nice boring man up there. So anyway, no matter how many times his mom shushed him, he would start to move around too much, or drop things on purpose, or giggle, or something till finally, mom picked him up, tucked him under her arm like a sack of potatoes, and headed for the back of the church. This was one of those moments when everyone knows what’s going to happen but everyone hopes it doesn’t. There is about to be a moment of parental discipline. We don’t feel sorry for the parent, we feel for the kid. And everyone is quiet. And mom is just about to reach the back door, kid under her arm, and his little Virginian voice says, “ y’all pray for me, y’hear.” We all have had moments like that when we have needed some special prayer haven’t we. Today’s scripture is about intimate prayer. Prayer just between us and God. Prayer that opens us up to a relationship with the living, loving creator of the universe. Charles Spurgeon, a very influential preacher from the 1800’s said that “Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence. To seek aid in a time of distress from a supernatural being is an instinct of human nature. I believe in the truthfulness of this instinct, and that man prays because there is something in prayer, as when the Creator gives the creature the power of thirst. It is because water exists to meet its thirst, and when He creates hunger, there is food to correspond to the appetite. So when He inclines men to pray, it is because prayer has a corresponding blessing connected to it. “ Prayer is a universal constant. In all religions, all over the world, there is some form of prayer practiced among all believers in faith. Last week, we talked about being persistent in our prayers. Being persistent in praying does three things. 1) it keeps us in God’s presence: Secondly, being persistent in prayer helps you define and refine your prayers: and thirdly, being persistent in prayer helps you prove and improve your faith. In today’s scripture, there are two warnings Jesus gave to us about prayer. These are two things that keep us from the intimacy in prayer that God desires. In the first one, he says, When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. One thing we learned in our Bible Study is that you always read a paragraph or two before and a paragraph or two after. When we do that here, we find that Jesus mentions ‘hypocrites’ in that previous paragraph. He says that when we do good deeds, when we give to the poor, when we take care of the needy, we should be quiet about it. There should be no bragging. There should be no looking to make sure people are watching. And there are people like that, right. People who give money only if they get the building named after them, or only if they get first billing in the newspaper article. They are only helping out for the pat on the back. This same viewpoint is then attributed to public prayer. Jesus said do not be a hypocrite who prays in order to get the approval of people. I have to say there isn’t much of a problem with that these days. If you were to pray on the street corner, people would not admire you for it but they might think you were off your meds and you would be arrested for disturbing the peace. Public prayer can be a very funny thing. When I was in college, many of my classes were started and ended with prayer. The professor would ask a student to open in prayer and another student to close in prayer. Well, in one of my new testament classes which was particularly unexciting, a good friend of mine, Andrew Wildsmith, who now is headmaster for a missionary school in Kenya, used to fall asleep all the time. Wildsmith did not just fall asleep. He would go into a coma in mid sentence, pen still in his hand, head down on the desk. Well, this was of course the perfect setup for a practical joke. So about three quarters of the way through class, Wildsmith conks out and the kid sitting next to him waits about ten minutes, so that Andy is really sound asleep. Then he shakes him and says in an urgent voice, hey, the teacher asked you to pray. Andy jumped right up and started praying. It was absolutely hysterical. Jesus was warning his disciples about pride. I can tell you, poor Andy had no problems with pride on that day. It’s a good thing we have friends to keep us humble isn’t it. So when you pray, or in fact, when you do anything for my kingdom, said Jesus, do it secretly. As a pastor who prays a lot in public, I worry a lot about what I say. I try not to. I try to let it happen spontaneously and simply flow from my heart to God, but I know everyone is listening. Especially when I am a guest prayer. Like when I have to say grace at a wedding or when I pray in front of other churches like at the Cranberry Council sunrise service. Pastors are under a lot of pressure to perform, right. So when you really want to pray, go where no one can hear you except God. That is the prayer that God really wants from us. Jesus said when you pray, do not be a hypocrite. Prayer is about devotion. Prayer is between you and God. Prayer is what we do to build up our relationship with God, not impress other people with a relationship we do not have. Dr. David Yongii Cho pastors the one million member Yoido Full Gospel Church in Korea. “You don’t want to just pray out of your head or have some list you’ve got, some head prayers, you want to pray out of your heart. What is in your heart? What’s the desire of your heart? What is cooking in your heart? What does your heart long for?” You cannot pray the desires of your heart on a street corner. You cannot pour out your private prayers in public. You need a secret, quiet place where you can safely make yourself known to God and He can make himself known to you. A little boy had knelt down and was saying his prayers by his bed. His mom who was waiting to tuck him in said, I can’t hear you.To which He replied, “I wasn’t talking to you.” And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions. Don’t be like people who think they will be heard because they use many words. So you’re thinking I probably ought to stop right there. Charles Spurgeon whom I quoted earlier said, “Long prayers injure prayer meetings. Fancy a man praying for twenty minutes, and then asking God to forgive his shortcomings.” I do not need to tell you how difficult a long prayer can be. We have all sat through them or should I say endured them. Therefore, don’t pray like that, says Jesus. Your Father knows what you need. From verse four to verse nine, Jesus mentions “your Father”, four times and then says, “Our Father”. Jesus was never one to drop names, but who do you think He’s talking about when he says “Father”? There’s always a key to understanding a piece of scripture and here is the key. Jesus is talking about our relationship with our Father in heaven. Our father doesn’t want to meet with us on a street corner, he wants to be alone with us in deep, intimate communion. Our Father doesn’t want us to ramble on in meaningless babble, He wants to hear from us the murmurings of our hearts. My wife hates sport talk shows. There is a lot more talk about sports than there is actual sports and if you listen at all to what they say, so much of it is incredibly meaningless: sportsbabble. There is no comparison between a real game of anything and sportsbabble. In the same way, there is real prayer, and then there is prayer babble. Real, intimate prayer gives us significance. In a world that does everything it can to make us powerless and small, we each have the undivided attention of our Father in heaven. . . if we want it. You are so valued by God, that he longs for you to join Him in that intimacy. That is significance. Real, intimate prayer opens our hearts to God who in turn opens his heart to us. Do you want a deeper, richer life with God? Do you want to trust Him more? Do you want to know Him more? Then follow these instructions from Jesus about prayer. Finally, real, intimate prayer, makes prayer worth it. If you have been a follower of Jesus for any length of time, you have tried to have a regular time of prayer and devotion with God. And more than likely, it ended up like all your other New Year’s resolutions; by the wayside. Intimate prayer, prayer from the heart, prayer that holds nothing back, prayer that is not just a checklist of needs, that kind of prayer will keep you coming back for more. Real, intimate prayer is God’s desire for us. And in that secret, quiet place, He waits for you.