This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to week 6 of our look through
the book of Matthew. We're in Matthew 6, the first part of Matthew 6 this week.
This is day 1.

We're going to look at this chapter this week about how we can pray, how we can
talk to God. Last week we talked about managing your relationship with others
and what Jesus had to teach us in the Sermon on the Mount in what we're calling
this Life Management Seminar. This week is really about managing your
relationship with God.

And Jesus starts with the obvious when he talks about this. He teaches us that
your relationship with God is about you and God. You cannot make the mistake of
letting how others view your relationship with God get in the way of your actual
relationship with God.

But it's a mistake we often tend to make. Jesus talks about it in verses 1 to 4.
He says, "Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen
by them.

If you do, you'll have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to
the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they
have received their reward in full.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right
hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret. And then your Father, who
sees what is done in secret, will reward you. " So Jesus says, "Let it be about
your relationship with God.

" Now someone on our research team asked a great question. When we were talking
in chapter 5, we looked at Jesus saying, "Let your light shine before men. " And
here he says, "Let it be done in secret.

" So which is it? What you need to understand is Jesus is talking about the
motivation here. Is your motivation for the things that you do, let your light
shine before men so that God can be glorified, remember?

Here they are letting their light shine, but it's not really light, so that they
can be glorified. So is your motivation how others see God? Then do anything and
everything.

Or is it how others see you? And watch out for what you're doing, Jesus says.
And be careful, because you can very easily let how others see your relationship
with God get in the way of your actual relationship with God.

To emphasize this, Jesus immediately turns to talking about prayer, to talking
about talking to God, talking to your Father. In fact, He's going to point to
prayer twice in this life management seminar. And He's going to talk to us
throughout this about a different kind of prayer, a daily conversation with God
that gives strength to life, that gives direction to your decisions.

In verses 5 to 8, Jesus starts His talk about prayer by saying this to us. "And
when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray, standing in
the synagogues and on the street corners, to be seen by men. " "I tell you the
truth, they have received their reward in full.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father
who is unseen. And then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will
reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they
think they'll be heard because of their many words.

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. "
When we listen to what Jesus has to say about prayer, He's talking about a
different kind of confidence or boldness in prayer. And when I think about
confidence in prayer and I see what people face in their faith as they walk
through a relationship with God, I find that many don't feel very confident
about praying to God.

It's just this sort of secret thing they never tell anybody. But the truth is,
they don't feel confident when they're praying to God. What do I say?

How do I act? What will happen if I pray the wrong thing? There's just not a lot
of confidence.

I found that more actually don't feel confident about praying before others.
They might be okay about praying to God, but if somebody were to call on them to
pray, your greatest fear is that in some groups, somebody's going to say, "Hey,
would you pray? " You don't feel that confidence to be able to do that.

And the truth is, I found that most don't feel confident about getting answers
to their prayers. And so as we look at prayer here, and also we're going to look
at it later in chapter 7, we're going to look at a new kind of confidence in
prayer that comes out of a relationship with God. In essence, we see in these
verses that prayer comes with directions.

A lot of people think, "Well, you should just know how to pray. " Jesus taught
us how to pray. Why does prayer come with directions?

Because I have to learn to pray. It's not automatic. I have to learn how to
communicate.

In a marriage, you have to learn how to communicate well. As a parent, you have
to learn how to communicate well. As a follower of Jesus, you've got to learn
how to communicate well with God.

Prayer is talking with God. And so a lot of the learning is simplifying,
stripping away a lot of the things we want to add and realizing it's just
talking with God. A healthy prayer life is a life that builds your relationship
with God.

Prayer is not just about expressing needs and getting answers. It's about
building your relationship with God. That's where it starts.

Having this healthy prayer life, Jesus teaches us here at the beginning point of
it, it's largely based on your answers to two questions. First, who am I trying
to impress? And second, who am I talking to?

First, who am I trying to impress? And Jesus talks here about those who try to
pray outside of a relationship with God. They pray.

They know how to do it, but it's not really about their relationship with God.
He says those people who pray outside of a relationship pray on the street
corners because they want other people to notice their prayers. Because it's not
really a prayer.

It's more of a show. It's more something to be noticed. Here he's talking
especially about the religious leaders in his day, the Jewish leaders who had a
habit of doing this, of praying on street corners so that they could be noticed,
how holy and religious they were.

He also says people praying outside of a relationship babble like pagans. So
even those who didn't follow the true God, sometimes they would pray, but they
would pray the same words sometimes, not just once or twice, but sometimes
hundreds of times, again and again and again, thinking that the false gods, the
idols that they served would have to serve them if they said the same magic word
enough times in a row. They were trying to get God to notice their prayers by
saying the same thing over and over again.

So the religious leaders were trying to get others to notice their prayers. The
pagans were trying to get God to notice their prayers. But people with a
relationship with God who are confident in it, Jesus said you just go into your
inner room, you shut the door, you talk to your father and he hears you and
he'll reward you.

Jesus says stop trying to impress others. Stop trying to impress God. Just talk
to God in a relationship.

Don't try to be heard for your many words, he says. God already knows your every
need. A lot of us have seen maybe with a parent and a child, a child is trying
to get that parent's attention.

And the parent's thinking about something else, so it's this mommy, mommy,
mommy, mommy, or daddy, daddy moment, and finally they get their attention. It's
not our relationship with God. God is not human.

God is perfect. So God is able to give all of us perfect attention all of the
time. We never have to say, "Hey, God, I deserve a little attention today.

" No, he gives his attention to you every day. You already have his attention.
When you pray, you're not hoping to get God's attention.

You're responding to the attention he's already given you. He is already aware
of everything that's going on in your life. So that's why Jesus says you talk to
God and you realize your father already knows what you need.

Now, I know a lot of people read that and they think, "Well, then why pray? If
God already knows what I need, why shouldn't he just give it to me and we can
skip the whole like middle man, the whole prayer part? " But when we think that
way, we're missing what prayer is really all about.

Prayer is not informing God of your need. Prayer is depending on God for that
need. God already knows everything you need.

But when I say to him, "God, I'm depending on you, not me, I'm depending on
you," that's what opens up my relationship with him. Jesus is teaching us here
that our Father rewards prayers that are not designed to impress others or
impress God, but that are instead meant to express our desires to him, the one
who loves us. Prayers that realize that the main reward, Jesus says, "You'll be
rewarded if you pray in this kind of way.

" Prayers that realize that the main reward is not in the answer. God often
answers our prayers, obviously, but the main reward is not in the answer. The
main reward is in the relationship, understanding what God wants to do in my
life.

Who am I trying to impress? You don't have to impress anybody in your prayers.
You talk to God in a relationship.

And then Jesus says the second question here is, "Who am I talking to? Who am I
talking to? " When you pray, go into your room, close the door, pray to your
Father.

So don't talk to others on the street corners. You talk to God. But also don't
talk to an impersonal God.

Talk to a loving Father. There are millions of people in this world who try to
talk to God without any confidence at all that he is hearing because they don't
know in their soul, they haven't received the truth of how deeply he loves them.
There's no confidence in prayer because there's no relationship with God.

Jesus taught us, this is radical in Jesus' day, to talk to our Father. Now when
you recognize that God is a loving Father, not a stern Master, not a stern
Father, he's a loving Father, that gives you confidence in your relationship and
prayer. That gives you confidence that he understands what you need when you
ask.

That gives you confidence that God is hearing and listening. That's where it
starts. So let me just ask you, when you talk to God, who are you trying to
impress?

Who are you talking to? Let's refresh our commitment to the relationship of
prayer right now together by praying, by talking to God. Pray with me, and just
simply say, Father, when I pray, I don't want to pray for others.

I don't want to pray to try to get you to do what I want. I want to start with
my relationship with you, and so I want to start with the fact that you're my
Father and that you love me, and then I can talk to you about anything and
everything out of that love, and you'll work in my heart and you'll listen to me
and you'll talk back to me through your word and impressions and other people,
and I can trust you to do that. Thank you that I can trust you as my loving
Father.

In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to see that Jesus continues his
instruction in prayer by saying, "This is how you should do it. This is how you
should pray.