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Seeking God’s Grace Through Prayer
How do I experience more of God and His grace? How do I experience more of Him? The Bible and Christ don’t leave us with those questions unanswered. Historically, He has given us over and over again reminders and tangible, concrete ways that He says, “In these conduits, in these means, by these methods, you may find me.” Yes, He is everywhere, and He says that if you want to find Him, find Him in the least of these, our brothers. But He also says when you want to find His grace and experience more of His presence and interaction, there are means for that.
Today, we’re going to look at this relationship, this connectivity with God that He puts in our world through the person of Christ. He tells us the way is that we talk with Him. Talking with God—prayer—is a place where we find His grace more vividly, more experientially, and more powerfully.
Reading of Scripture: Matthew 6:5-15
Look, if you will, at Matthew 6. I’m going to start reading at verse five. The larger context of this particular text is the Sermon on the Mount, the longest section of speech we have from Jesus in one place in scripture.
“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 others. Truly I tell you, 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. 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 will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.
Opening Prayer
Father, thank You for Your goodness to us. Thank You for the way that You aren’t hiding. Even as we’ve heard, Your goodness comes after us, it pursues us, it chases us down. You’re not hiding, Father; You want to be found by us. You want to be known by us, You want to be embraced by us, for You embrace us with Your love and Your grace. Let that saturate our hearts and minds as we come this morning—the way we think, the way we feel, the way we interact and live. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
A Lesson in Extroverted Processing
Recently, the Lord has convinced me of something—and when I say recently, I mean in the last couple of years. I don’t know if you have experiences with God convincing you of things over the history of your life. I have a couple of moments that are poignant. God’s always teaching me something, but there are these poignant moments.
As you may know, I’m an extrovert. I’m also extroverted in my processing. An extroverted personality is often understood as someone who finds energy in the social experience. Extroverted processing is a bit different. It means I can’t quite get my head wrapped around a decision-making process unless I’ve verbalized it in some fashion. Other people are more introverted processors; they need time personally and privately to go through it themselves. Usually, in a marriage, there’s one of each, which is a wonderful grace but also a living hell.
In my extroverted processing, I’ve always imagined that what we need here is words. Words and conversation—that’s what’s going to solve the problem. In our marriage, Becky is an internal processor. When she needs to make choices, she needs quiet, she needs to be alone, and she doesn’t need words. I, as an extroverted processor, felt the problem was always that there weren’t enough words. I gave her the impression that internal processing was “bad” and extroverted processing was “good.”
For decades, I went through life thinking my words were what would change things. But a few years ago, I had a shocking realization. I told my wife, “I think God has convinced me that my words aren’t the thing that’s going to solve this problem.” She looked at me, and it didn’t seem to impact her all that much. It was as if she knew it in advance! It took me decades to get to this place where I now have a new filter on my thinking. My words are not the most valuable thing in the moment. That’s a dramatic recalibrating of the human soul.
Re-calibrating Prayer
When Jesus is talking in this setting about prayer, it’s a recalibration of that idea. It’s a little counter-intuitive to our current culture. Our culture, in light of social media, says what I have to say and experience is the most important thing. Everyone has their own pulpit—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok—and we’ve been convinced that our words are necessary and most valuable.
But Jesus is saying prayer is different than that. Talking to God is something completely different than what you imagined, and it’s wonderfully gracious and empowering. Prayer affects our presuppositions, it affects us personally, and it affects our posture.
1. Our Presuppositions (Matthew 6:5-8)
Jesus starts by giving two examples of the way people pray in the culture. He’s addressing people who have an internal desire to know God. He says, “When you pray, you have underlying assumptions—presuppositions—that are radically wrong.”
First, He points to the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. They stand in the synagogues and on street corners to pray boldly. If prayer is an attempt to talk to God, why go to a street corner? The underlying hypocrisy is that their prayer is outward, meant to achieve an outward reward. Sometimes we do this too; our prayers become a way of teaching the people around us or seeking their approval.
Jesus says prayer isn’t about communicating horizontally; it’s about talking to Him. He says, “Go into secret. Go privately.” It’s about your personal involvement with Him, and the reward will be internal. For me, the internal reward was the Lord telling me to “de-centralize” myself and get off my high horse.
At the other end of the spectrum, He says don’t pray with babbling, repetitive words like the pagans. They think they’ll get God’s attention by persistence and unthoughtful words. But God doesn’t need to be pestered. He already knows what you need. You don’t have to convince Him.
2. Personal Connection (Matthew 6:9)
Prayer affects us personally because Jesus tells us how to pray: “Our Father.” He doesn’t say “pray this,” but “pray like this.” It’s a format. He wants us to pray with the mind that we are praying to our Father—Abba, Papa.
You’re not praying to an administrator or a distant, transcendent God, but to your Father. He wants you to pray to Him the same way Jesus, His natural-born Son, prays to Him. His desire is to hear you the same way a father desires to hear his kids.
I remember waiting for my children to say their first words. When they called me “Daddy,” it warmed my heart. But there’s something even better: when your grandchildren say your name. When my boys say “Papa,” my heart just soars. That’s how God’s ear is toward you.
Jesus always said “Father” when He prayed, except for one time: on the cross, when He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus was willing to lose His familial connection and be crushed for our iniquities so that we could enter the presence of God with familiarity and say, “Papa, I need you.”
3. Our Posture (Matthew 6:9-10)
Finally, prayer offers a change in posture. “Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” It’s “You, You, You.” This recalibrates us. All of our failures are a failure of adoration. That which we “hallow” runs our lives—our emotions, our anxieties, our comforts.
If you walk away from prayer and don’t feel comforted, it’s often because you’re still hallowing something else. But when you hallow His name and His kingdom, you can step away from the tiny, small-minded story you’ve wrapped yourself in and get into the larger picture of what God can do.
Jesus prayed in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He was free to share His struggle, but His Father’s will was predominant. We get so concerned with our own kingdom, like Adam and Eve in the garden. They believed that because God wouldn’t give them one thing, He wouldn’t give them anything good.
But God is a Father who wants to give us all things. Romans 8 says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” He wants us back in the garden where we have everything. Prayer is the place where we talk this out with God and learn to trust Him.
Closing Prayer
Father, forgive us for seeing You through the lens of a stingy religious leader rather than a loving Father. Work that out in us. Let our concern be more for Your glory and Your hallowedness than our own. Because of what You’ve done—the sacrifice You’ve given—we can trust that Your kingdom is intertwined with the beauty, glory, and love of Your children. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.