Remember in this campaign we are talking about praying like Jesus prayed. We are seeking to model our prayer life after Jesus' prayer life and obeying his teachings on prayer. This week we are going to focus on a distinct characteristic of Jesus' prayer life—solitude.
To be clear at the outset, Jesus also models public prayer and prayer in small groups. But we must note that when he teaches on prayer he distinctly calls us to pray in solitude. Jesus' teaching on prayer in Matthew 6 falls in the middle of his most famous sermon—The Sermon on the Mount. Luke's gospel has Jesus teaching the Lord's Prayer in response to the disciple's inquiring of Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray..." In Matthew's gospel, it falls as the second of three warnings from Jesus. He warns them in Matthew 6:1
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
What follows is three warnings against what the hypocrites do in religious practices. He calls them to give, pray and fast, without seeking public affirmation, but solely for God as an audience. This week and next, we will focus on his teachings on prayer.
Matthew 6:5–6
5 “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. 6 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.
Today we will talk about what not to do. Tomorrow we will talk about what to do. According to Jesus' teaching, here, we must always be aware of our motives in public prayer. Our motive must never be "to be seen by others." This is not a prohibition against public prayer—Jesus prayed in public on occasion. It is a prohibition on praying hypocritically for public affirmation only. Those who do "have received their reward in full." That is, they have received the reward of public recognition from their audience and won't receive a reward or approval from God.
If you're being honest and you've spent much time in church cultures like ours, you know that this tends to be a real problem in churches like ours. Obviously in a different way, as we don't have prayers that should be recited at certain times of day. But we do other things that are in the same vein as what Jesus prohibits here: we often try to make our voice more emotional in prayer, try to think of big words to use to impress others listening, or we quote Bible verses to show everyone how much of the Bible we know, or just boast about how much time we spend in prayer. None of these actions are wrong in and of themselves, but they are wrong if our motive is wrong. That is, if we are doing them to be seen by others, and not out of a desire to communicate with God or build one another up in prayer. All of these get at the heart issue Jesus is trying to teach his followers to avoid.
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Reflection
Search your heart today. Do you love to pray in front of others? Do you try to impress people with your religious vocabulary in prayer or your quotations of Bible verses in prayer? Do you find yourself regularly boasting about your private prayer time? Remember it is good to pray together and to pray Bible verses, but we must be aware of our heart and our motives in public or group prayer. Repent where you find pride and commit to praying to God as your audience, not solely for others, seeking to impress them.