An Audience of One 
Prayer – Part 2(Matthew 6:5-6) 

Baxter T. Exum (#1736)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
May 19, 2024

Good morning and welcome! If you are visiting this morning or joining us online or on the phone, we are especially glad to have you with us, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – online if you can, or you can use one of the cards from the pew in front of you. Whatever works for you, we would love to hear from you, and we invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns.

Before we get to our study of the Word, I’d like to share a few brief updates from our Bible correspondence course program. If you would like to enroll, I’m putting our contact information on the wall up here. If you are joining us on the phone, give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274. But we offer a series of studies that explain God’s plan of salvation as well as take each student on a verse-by-verse study of James, Luke, Acts, as well as 1 Corinthians. We put the statistics for this program on the back side of the bulletin, in the lower left-hand corner. Last month, for example, we graded and returned 774 lessons, including lessons that went out to 85 students who are completely new to the program. And we get letters. For example, we recently received a note from Bryan, through the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, and Bryan says, “Dear friends at Four Lakes Church of Christ, thank you for the wonderful Bible studies. You are all such a blessing to me and my family. Please keep up the good work.” And then we also got a note from Wendy, from somewhere in Wisconsin, I believe. She says, “I am doing better thanks to God and people like you. I love my lessons so much. I hope and pray we will receive many more. I read the Bible all the time. Thank you for helping me change my life. Keep the lessons coming, please.” It is certainly our privilege to honor that request!

And then, this week, I got one of the most encouraging calls that I have ever taken in more than 30 years of answering a church telephone. My first time answering a church phone was on an old wall-mounted black rotary phone back in the summer of 1992 when I was doing a do-it-yourself internship down in Janesville. My dad was one of the first to call, and I answered, “Hello?” He said, “Is this the church of Christ?” I said, “Yes,” and he said, “Well, how would I know that? You need to say ‘church of Christ’ when you answer!” I now answer calls from anywhere on a second virtual sim card on a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. Well, this week we got a call from Connie, a Christian woman nearly 80 years old, living with her husband Larry just east of Raleigh, North Carolina. They have a Bible correspondence course program at their congregation, and one of her students has finished everything they have and is looking for something more. Connie actually took one of our courses a while back, and she was asking if we would be willing to send our lessons to this woman. And then Connie and I just talked like old friends for about half an hour. We had so much in common, and we closed by talking about how wonderful it will be to get to get to know each other better on the other side. But Connie did have a special request. Her husband was out mowing the lawn, but he has just been diagnosed with Lewy Body, and Connie specifically asked that we be praying for Larry. Lewy Body has a way of showing itself in different ways, and Connie wants us to be praying for God’s mercy and comfort through whatever comes next. So, I have added Larry to our prayer list today.

We are here this morning to honor God as we preach the good news concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We obey this good news by believing it, by turning away from sin, by publicly stating our belief that Jesus is the Son of God, and by being buried with him in baptism. And we do have several examples to share this morning, starting with an update from the church down in Madison, Alabama. They say that, “Amber has been driving by our building for the last couple of years. On Tuesday she called the office and said that she had been going back to the Bible and studying. She knew that she had been distant from Jesus for a long time and she wanted that to change that. So Tuesday afternoon her daughters watched their mother put Christ on in baptism and her sins wash away. It’s a beautiful story that’s still being written. Join us in encouraging Amber in her spiritual walk and praying for her to grow in wisdom and knowledge in Christ.” All as a result of driving by the church building. So good to see it!

This next one explains an interesting tradition from the Walnut Street congregation down in Dixon, Tennessee. They say that, “We celebrated Steven’s new life in Christ yesterday! Something we do here in the Walnut Street Church family! When someone believes and is baptized to be saved and follows Jesus, we give them the towel they used at their baptism with their name and date embroidered on it and a Bible with a certificate! Sounds just like what we do when someone is born!” I love that and thought we should share it.

This one comes from Josh Robinson, a friend who’s been in Kenya this week, and I had to fill the screen with this one. What a picture! But Josh says that, “It was a great day in Wang’ a Rot, Kenya today. The Gospel was taught and two souls were baptized!  Looking forward to the rest of our time here!” Absolutely beautiful! But I should also let you know that Josh is a private pilot, and recently left full-time preaching to work with the Manna Project. He has been in Kenya helping to design and install water collection and drinking water purification systems. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I would not be surprised if that is some of his work in the picture here. But, great things happening in Kenya this week – bringing people not only drinking water, but the water of life as well!

And I had to share one more this week, and I think you’ll understand why when I explain. This comes from Jon Roe who explains that, “Four souls obeyed the gospel at Popeye's Chicken. Brother Richard Oldham, from Midland, met these four in the restaurant and simply asked them, ‘If Jesus came back today, would you go to heaven?’ They said they weren’t sure and Brother Richard asked them if they’d like to know for sure. He had a Bible study with them and taught them the gospel and they were baptized right away! God is highly exalted!” Richard is the man in the middle, wearing the Universal Studios sweatshirt. In the post, Jon then says, “CHURCH, THIS IS HOW WE DO IT! Thank you, Brother Richard, for your love for lost souls and your courage in meeting people where they are and asking the question. What immense joy!” I’m guessing they weren’t actually baptized IN a Popeye’s Chicken, but that’s where that first contact was made. So good to see it! And we share these examples as a reminder and as our invitation to you to obey the gospel just as they have. If you would like to study God’s plan for your life, if you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch using the contact information on the wall up here (or on your screen at home). If you are joining us on the phone, you can send a text or give me a call at 608-224-0274.

This morning, we return to our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount by getting back to the first half of Matthew 6, where Jesus emphasizes the importance of practicing acts of righteousness “for an audience of One,” with God in heaven being that “one.” The theme for this series comes from Matthew 6:1, where Jesus says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”  And so, as we learned last week, motive matters! If we do good to be noticed by the people around us, Jesus says that the praise we receive from the world will be all the praise we get, that God is not impressed at all. And with that warning as an introduction, we are looking at a series of three acts of righteousness that must be done not to impress the people around us, but instead, must be done “for an audience of One.” Last week, we looked at GIVING TO THE POOR, and we learned that it’s not a sin for somebody to notice; in fact, in the previous chapter, Jesus had just told us to let our light so shine before men so that they may glorify our Father in heaven. However, our motive needs to be pure. Well, this week, we start looking at PRAYER.

And again, as with what Jesus just said about giving, we now come to prayer, and we also have the bad and the good – what not to do, followed by some positive instruction. And today, we’ll just be looking at verses 5-6. These are the words of Jesus from Matthew 6:5-6. Jesus says,

When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.  But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Most of us would probably agree that prayer is one of those subjects where we need some instruction. In fact, over in Luke’s account, the disciples actually come to Jesus in Luke 11:1, and they say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And it’s interesting that (as far as we know), the disciples never say, “Lord, teach us to give,” or, “Lord, teach us to fast,” but they do say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Prayer, then, is one of those areas were most of us need some help. We struggle sometimes. Maybe we get distracted. I don’t know about you, but when I start to pray, I almost always start thinking about what I need to be doing, and then a notification goes off on my phone, and I’m off like our beagle chasing a rabbit. Or maybe we don’t know what to pray for. Or maybe we’re overwhelmed with the idea of little old me talking to the Creator of the Universe, and maybe we feel completely unworthy. Or maybe, as we are leading a public prayer, we get self-conscious: Who am I to lead God’s people in prayer like this?

So, what we are looking at this morning (and next Lord’s Day) is extremely practical. We need this. 

I.	Again, we have the good and the bad, and we start with the BAD part of this example (in verse 5).

“When you pray,” Jesus says, “you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men.” So, we’re in the “bad” part of this passage. This is what NOT to do when we pray. But let’s notice that what they are actually doing is good. These people “love to...pray,” Jesus says. Can that be said of us? Do we truly love to pray? And are we praying regularly? I just want us to realize here at the beginning that what these people are doing is actually good.

However, as with what we learned last week, they are doing the right thing but for the wrong reason. These people are “hypocrites,” Jesus says. As we learned last week, a hypocrite is an actor. On the stage, that’s fine, but not when it comes to worship, because these people are praying while standing in the synagogues and on the street corners “so that they may be seen by men.” That’s the motivation here. These people are praying in a certain way, and at a certain time, and in a certain place in order to be noticed. And again: There’s nothing wrong with standing while we pray. Several times through the years, I’ve shared the old story about a group of preachers debating the proper posture as we pray. One suggested that his most powerful prayers come when he kneels in his office. Another preacher suggested that for him it’s laying down flat on his face before the Lord. Another preacher suggested that the best way for him to pray was to stand before the Lord with his hands raised up toward heaven. Well, the telephone repair guy was in the office that day, and he overheard all of this, and he said, “You know, my most fervent prayer happened a few years ago when I fell off a telephone pole as I hung upside down in my harness.” That right there is the key to fervent prayer. So there’s nothing wrong with the “standing” in this passage. There’s nothing wrong with praying in a synagogue. There’s nothing wrong with praying on a street corner. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with public prayer. Great men like Ezra and Samuel very publicly led God’s people in prayer back in Old Testament times. We have several examples of God’s people praying very publicly together as a group in Acts 4 and in Acts 12. So, praying in public is not the problem. The problem is the reason why these people were praying. They were praying in a way “so that they may be seen by men.”

In Jewish culture back then, they had certain prayers that they would pray a certain times of the day. Today, perhaps you are familiar with our Islamic friends who have a set schedule of prayer. Earlier today, I looked these up online (yes, there’s an app for that), and the designated times of prayer for today come at 3:49 AM, 5:26 AM, 12:50 PM, 4:51 PM, 8:14 PM, and at 9:52 PM. Years ago, I remember attending a lecture on the UW campus, sponsored by the Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions. They had a guest come in to give some background on US policy in the middle east and how religion plays a role in that. And the goal of the Lubar Institute is to foster understanding between the three world religions that trace their roots back to Abraham – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. So, these three faith traditions were represented in the huge lecture hall that night. However, as I remember it, there was a bit of an oops moment, when they realized that the lecture was scheduled to begin shortly before one of those scheduled times of prayer for our Islamic friends. So, there was a bit of chaos as people were coming in, and then realizing that 1/3 of the crowd would need to leave the room to go pray for while, and then come back. It was interesting to say the least. But the Jews back in the time of Jesus would do something similar. They had set times of prayer, and if you wanted to be noticed, you could “just so happen” to be in a public place during those times of the day. “Well, it’s about that time! Oh, look, I’m right here on this street corner when it’s time to pray!” And they would then offer those prayers very publicly, for the purpose of attracting attention, “Look how spiritual I am!” And that’s a problem, Jesus says. Those who pray “to be seen by men” may be the center of attention, but that is their “reward in full.”

Prayer, to be effective, must be directed to God, not to other people. It’s been a while since I’ve shared this pet peeve, but after some tragic event, sometimes people will say that they are “sending prayers to the family.” And I know, we all make mistakes when we speak. I’m at the top of that list. I speak roughly 5,000 words every week, publicly. You multiply that by 50 weeks a year, and I have spoken well over 7 million words from a pulpit over the past 30 years, and a majority of those words are online right now – PDF, text only, mp3, and now on video. I misspeak all the time. But when somebody says that they are “sending prayers to a family,” there’s a good chance (in my mind) that this person doesn’t really understand what prayer is. When I pray, I am not sending those prayers to a family; no, I am praying to God on behalf of that family. And I don’t think the wording is a big deal if we are actually praying, but I’m illustrating that when we pray we are not praying to people; no, we are praying to God about people. And there is a difference.

I think of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector over in Luke 18 where Jesus tells a story aimed at “some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt,” and Jesus says,

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

There’s a lot in that story, but let’s just notice that the self-righteous Pharisee might have addressed his prayer to God, but Jesus says that he was actually “praying this to himself.” So also, the hypocrites back here in Matthew 6 might have appeared to be praying to God, but they were actually praying to be seen by men; they were nothing more than actors on a stage.

As I was preparing today’s lesson, I kept running across references to “virtue signaling.” And there’s discussion on this, but generally speaking, virtue signaling refers to “the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.” We might think of a celebrity or politician who always takes a private jet from place to place but then publicly shakes a finger at others for not caring about the environment. Or we might think of someone changing their profile picture online to support the latest cause, “I’m in favor of the latest thing! I am a good person because I support this or that!” I’m not sure whether I’ve offended everybody yet, so I should probably continue by saying that we’ve learned quite a bit about “no mow May” over the past few years, haven’t we? And again, in case I haven’t offended anybody yet this morning, the science now suggests no real benefit to not mowing during May. Even the City of Madison has seen the light and is now backing away from “No Mow May.” And so, it is now becoming more of a statement than an actual helpful act, “I care for the pollinators!” When, in reality, it would be much better to plant some fruit trees (as we have). I’m not cutting on anybody for not mowing during May (you can mow or not mow, I don’t care at all), but I’m illustrating that we will sometimes do things to make people think that we are good people. And the real problem comes when we do this with prayer. If we pray in such a way to be noticed by the people around us, that applause from the world will be our only reward, Jesus says.

II.	Well, this brings us to the GOOD part of this passage.

And basically here, we are told to do the exact opposite of praying publicly to be seen by men. In fact, Jesus says (in verse 6), “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” We miss this in most of our English translations, but I want us to go back to the Y’all Version that I’ve referenced a few times over the past year or so. The use of “y’all” indicates a plural “you,” that we miss sometimes. And in this passage, using the Y’all Version, Jesus says, “When y’all pray, y’all are not to be like the hypocrites,” and so on, and then Jesus says, “But you, when you pray,” are to do it like this. So the warning is given to everybody, but the positive instruction here is very personal. Prayer is personal.

And the reason for this is that Jesus is encouraging these people (individually) to pray. You can do this! And I think many people would have been intimidated by the prayers of the Pharisees. They see these guys all dressed up in their fancy robes and special hats offering these long and elaborate prayers in these very public places, and many people probably thought to themselves, “There’s no way I could ever pray like that.” And they might have been tempted to just give up. If I can’t pray like that, if I can’t be super spiritual like those guys are, then why bother? But Jesus is saying: You can do it! God hears you! You don’t have to pray like that!

And to make the point, Jesus tells them to go into their “inner room.” The word he uses here refers to a storage room, a room without windows, often the only room that could even be locked in ancient times. It’s basically the pantry or a closet. It’s where we might store a big sack of potatoes or bags of flour or the 55 gallon drum of cheese puffs from Costco. It’s the place we might go in a tornado warning. When they come on the radio with a weather warning and say, “Go into an interior room without windows,” that’s the room Jesus is talking about here. It’s not a room people would have spent a lot of time in, and it’s certainly the last place you might expect to find somebody praying. And that is the point! God hears you, not because you deliver some long and eloquent prayer on a street corner somewhere, but he hears you even in secret. And aren’t we thankful for that? There’s a whole lot I need to be talking to God about that I probably shouldn’t be sharing from a pulpit, live on YouTube. Yes, there is a place for public prayer, but there’s also a place for pouring it all out before the Lord, and that happens in private, in secret, in the closet, in the pantry, down there in the tornado shelter. Or, it might happen in the car on your commute to work, or on a run, or on a walk, or in the pool, or in the car at work during a lunch break, or early in the morning before anybody else in the family wakes up. If you travel, I have found that many airports (and even hospitals) have chapels, and they are almost always empty. Remember: There were times when Jesus went out into the wilderness or to some other solitary place to pray (Mark 1:35 and Luke 5:16). The point is being alone, without distractions, in secret.

And when we pour our hearts out to God in secret, Jesus says that the God who sees what is done in secret will reward us. And that reward, I believe, is being heard. Being heard by God is a reward in and of itself. God hears! And doesn’t it make sense that when we need to have an important conversation with somebody, we do it in private? So also with prayer.

Now, let’s not be thinking that the only place we can pray is in the closet or in the utility room next to the furnace. But Jesus is addressing the temptation to pray in such a way to be seen. He’s addressing our motivation. As I was doing the research for today’s lesson, I ran across someone who suggested that public prayer should really be the tip of the iceberg. And what they meant by that was that just as only 10% of an iceberg may be above the surface of the water, so also our public prayers really need to be supported by a large mass of private prayers that we’ve been offering during the week. I appreciate that. Someone else has suggested that under the New Covenant, the new “Holy of Holies” is the storage shed. I appreciate that as well. Remember, Jesus told the woman at the well (in John 4) that a time was coming when God’s people would no longer go to the temple in Jerusalem for worship. It’s not the place anymore, but under the New Covenant all we need is a closet.

And speaking of closets, if you have any interest, I might suggest doing a quick online search for “prayer closet ideas.” There are some really cool ideas out there. There are people who have set aside a small space in their homes (literal closets, or maybe a place in the attic, or under the stairs), dedicated to prayer. And some of these are really, really neat. Some are nothing more than a chair and a shelf for a Bible. Others have a bulletin board for pictures of the people you’re praying for. Others have a wall of Post-It notes with a sharpie. But if you have any inclination to make a place for prayer, you may want to do a bit of research for some very interesting ideas. Whatever you do, though, make sure to take pictures and brag about your prayer closet online!

But here’s another danger: Sometimes we think of prayer almost like an open hot-line to God. And that’s what I believe Paul is suggesting in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 when he says that we are to “Pray without ceasing.” I can be driving, and I can say, “Dear God, help Bob!” or something like that. Or here in Wisconsin, “Dear God, as you can see, my car is now sliding sideways down the exit ramp, and I could really use some help right now.” And it’s good that we pray at times like this, but is this enough? What Jesus is suggesting here is going to a place and praying, perhaps for an extended period of time. And I will confess: I need to do better at this. We might compare it to marriage. We made it to 31 years this week, and I think I’ve learned through the years that yes, I need to communicate with my wife regularly and spontaneously throughout the day, but there’s also a value to planning an extended getaway from time to time, where it’s just us and we can truly be together, a date night for a few hours every week or two, or even get out of town to be undistracted for a day or two. So also in our relationship with God. And if we never plan it, it will probably never happen. So, I might suggest committing right now to schedule a time to pray this week. Decide on maybe 20 minutes or an hour at some time when you can be alone this week, and then set it up as an appointment in your phone. And then keep that appointment with God this week.

Conclusion:

This morning, we have looked at the danger of praying to be seen by those around us. I don’t know about you, but I know that I’ve been challenged by this passage. As with giving, motivation matters, and as with giving, we must also pray “for an audience of One,” and God is that One.

As we close this part of our service, let’s go to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

You are a God who searches our hearts, and you know exactly why we do everything that we do. We come to you this morning in worship. Thank you for hearing our prayers today. But we are especially thankful that you hear our prayers when we are all alone. We pray for greater faith, and we pray for the ability to pray as we should, setting aside all distractions and praying with pure and unselfish motives.

This morning, we come to you as a group, as a congregation of your people, asking you to bless those who are struggling right now. Be with Callie as she is with her mom in Texas right now, nearing the end of her mom’s time on this earth. Thank you for allowing them to be together today. Bless James as he lives with the challenge of failing health. Be with Tyler as he is facing yet another obstacle, and bless his family as they offer their love and support. And we ask for your blessing on Larry in North Carolina. We pray for wisdom and strength not only for him, but especially for his wife Connie, as they serve you together in the remaining years of their lives. Lord, have mercy.

We come to you this morning in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

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