Prayer’s a funny thing – it’s talking to someone you can’t see or hear – at least not in the same way as we can see or hear the people around us.  So – does it make sense?

Communication between people – I mean real, meaningful communication, is becoming harder to come by.  Technology lets us be more connected – but somehow, we communicate less.  With people, and with God …

The more technology we seem to get in our hands the more connected we become. Way back when, the postal service was the major innovation. Then came telephones and cars then and faxes and mobiles phones and email. These days my 16 year old daughter communicates with her friends through websites like myspace.com.

The other thing you notice, the more of this stuff we have in our lives the busier we become. The more options we have so we cramp pack our lives full of doing and stuff and stuff. And the incredible paradox of all this is that the more communication devices we have at our fingertips the less we communicate. You know, the sort of communication that happened when we went camping as kids and sat around the fire and just talked.

Somehow we are so busy these days that that sort of comfortable relationship building, affirming communication seems to have gone out the window. Whether its with other people or with God.

Now this Paradox is real. It’s alive. It affects almost everybody. Somehow technology and work and all the entertainment options we have these days, instead of opening us up to other people, closes down. And so many of these things you can do on your own. The teenagers who are wired to their ipods.

I was listening to the news last night on television here in Australia and they were saying that one in three adults has an mp3 music player. I proudly thought, well, I’m not one of those. And then I realised my mobile phone has an mp3 player on it.

It’s all so seductive. Cable TV, internet, movies, restaurants, on and on. Ok, we can’t all afford those things all the time. It’s amazing how we go chasing after the baubles the world says you’ve got to have. Buying stuff. Working longer and longer. And those leisurely lunches that we used to have with family and friends on the weekend are replaced with rushing around shopping centres and buying stuff and getting this organised and that organised.

I’m a victim of this sort of world as much as anyone else. One of the things I’ve had to do is deliberately carve out time with people. After you get to the end of the day and so You know something, I can work another couple of hours and answer all the emails or I can stop and have some time with my wife, my family.

I have this friend, good friend, James and once or twice a week we make a point of catching up for coffee together just to sit and talk, just so that I can have some male fellowship and he with me and have a friendship.

We need to stop this merry-go-round, get off and smell the roses. And These days, you know something I think these days this is a deliberate decision to go against the flow. Its true of my relationship with people and its true in my relationship with God. There are a lot of people you know, who’ve discovered how wonderful it is to pray, to have communication with God, to stop and to pause with Him and just rest with Him every day.

But many of those people live incredibly busy lives. They’re just too busy to do this every day. Get up have breakfast, commute to work, you’re flat out all day. Come home, your tired you watch the news, the television. How do you fit in great family communication let alone spending time with God – in prayer? It’s a good question.

I spoke on this subject a couple of years ago at a conference a couple of years ago of Christian leaders in the field of media and communications. Now you’d expect that these Christian leaders in the field of media and communications would have this sorted. Hmmm. I made the point when I was speaking, the most important thing each one of us has to do in our lives is to have a relationship with God.

When a young lawyer came up to Jesus and said, “Jesus what’s the most important thing you reckon”. And Jesus said, “Oh that’s easy. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength. This is the greatest commandment. The second one is just like it . Love others as you love yourself”.

So what Jesus is saying to me and to you is, the most important thing on our to do list for today is to spend some time with Him. And we call that, we call that prayer.

It was really interesting at this conference. One by one during the morning tea break and the afternoon tea break and the lunch break, one by one these leaders came up to me and said, you know something, this is something I have a real problem with in my life. I’m just so busy, I don’t know how to get some time alone with God in my life every day. This is a really common problem.

Its not just me. It’s not just you. Most people who know that prayer works struggle to carve out a regular prayer time. Now we kind of know in our hearts it’s one of the best things we can do. And over this week and next week we’ll be talking about that because prayer is such a powerful thing.

But carving out that time, just finding 10-15 minutes or a half an hour or forty five minutes, where do you find that sort of time? But you know something, when I spend that time quietly each morning with my God, I have a peace and a joy and a rest and a power and an ability to get through the rest of the day. I seem to handle things so much better. It works.

But we’re so busy doing the urgent things we don’t have time for the important things. Let me tell you something. Let’s get a grip on reality here. Who sets the priorities in our lives. Well, I know some things we just have to do, but at the end of the day we set the priorities.

We allocate our time, we decide. And if we don’t do this, set aside time for communication with God and other people a communication gap emerges. It happens in a family. It happens in a marriage. It happens at work. It happens in any relationship you care to mention.

If we don’t spend some good time together you know something, we are going to drift apart. The communication gap gets wider and wider and wider. You know what I’ve noticed. My fellowship with God gets deeper and richer when I have regular prayer with Him, every day prayer life. If I let it go, a day here, a day there becomes two or three days, becomes a week. Then I sit down and try and pray and it’s like the conversation is just bouncing off the ceiling, it feels like He’s not there.

But isn’t that the nature of relationships. If we let things drift apart, if a husband and wife just go running around doing the stuff they do all the time then after a couple of weeks they look at each other, they feel so dissatisfied with their relationship, communication is hard to re-establish.

But when they just take a few minutes each day, or just spend some time together, or have a cup of coffee, or have a quiet time after dinner without the kids, whatever it is, the communication just flows. This is a decision that we have to make. It’s the nature of relationships.

Do I want a rich relationship with God? I mean, do I really, really want that? Is that the most important thing in my heart? And if the answer’s yes, well let me get in your face. It has to translate in the priorities we apply to our to do list. We need to carve out that time and keep it.

Maybe you’re like me and you’re a morning person and you love getting up in the morning. But maybe that doesn’t work for you. Maybe its on the bus or on the train or in the car when you’re heading off to work. Maybe it’s in the evening just quietly on your own. Whatever, it works for you.

Can I tell you something? There is power in prayer, real power and a rest and a delight and wonder. But, it just ain’t going to happen if we don’t set time aside.

So many people think that prayer is some kind of formula – if I apply the formula then I’ll get what I want.  But what if someone communicated with us like that – wouldn’t we feel as though we’re being manipulated?

Sometimes when you mention the word prayer it conjures up images, for some people, of a ritual or a formula. You know, you have to be in a certain place and dressed a certain way or you have to know the right words to say. And provided you do that, well God won’t punish you and you might get what you’re asking for.

Mmm, that’s certainly what I was taught when I was growing up. And when I’d done a bit of growing up I looked at that whole thing and thought, ‘if that’s prayer, who needs it?’

So I went for a good twenty years or so without praying at all. That’s a long time in the wilderness I have to tell you. And then in my late thirties I decided to have another look at this Jesus and what I discovered was that that was exactly what He said prayer wasn’t about, can I tell you? I felt conned, robbed twenty years. What a waste.

Most people kind of know the words to what they call the Lord’s Prayer. You know,

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Those words were actually spoken by Jesus and they’re pretty well known and somehow, so many people have taken them, learned them off rote and then turned them into a prayer formula. “If I say the right words then I’m in like Flynn, right?”

But what we miss is the words just before those, that say: “Don’t turn prayer into a formula.” Have a listen to what Jesus actually said; if you ever want to read it, it’s in the book of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament, chapter 6, verses 5-8. This is what he said:

And when you pray don’t be like the hypocrites because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners and to be seen by people. I tell you the truth, they’ve 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 you’re Father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, don’t keep on babbling like the pagans because they think they’ll be heard because of their many words. Don’t be like them because your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.

You know, I remember hearing ministers and priests praying and thinking, “Boy, they’re really good at this. They have such great words, you know God must really listen to them. But I’m not like that, God would never listen to me.” You get this picture of God high up on His throne (and He is) and I have to get there by applying the right formula, the right protocol.

I have to kowtow here and genuflect there and burn some incense, memorise this prayer or those words. I jump through all the hoops and loops and maybe, just maybe I’ll be acceptable to God and sometimes you learn that that’s a whole bunch of rubbish but somehow it still sticks with you. You know what I mean?

But look at exactly what Jesus said:

Don’t keep on babbling like pagans because they think they’ll be heard because of their many words. Don’t be like them because your Father knows what you need even before you ask Him.

And neither is it about outward appearances.

Don’t be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people.

We think in outward terms. We think that someone looks impressive or sounds impressive and that must be the way that God judges people. But we know, actually that God doesn’t look on the outer person, he looks on our hearts.

And when you look at Jesus you see that. You look at how He walked and how He talked and He wasn’t some religious nut. He was real. He cut through the religious rituals, straight to the heart of what mattered with people.

Jews weren’t supposed to work on the Sabbath. It was against the law, still is for Jews. But when people were hungry He fed them even though it was the Sabbath. When they were sick, He healed them even though it was the Sabbath. And when the religious hypocrites criticized Him for not complying with the letter of the Law. He said to them, “You bunch of hypocrites, you brood of vipers, you’ve missed the point.”

That’s Jesus! That’s the Son of God and that’s exactly what God’s like. He’s a person, He’s real, He has an amazing heart and a love and a compassion for us and a desire to help and hold and comfort us. It’s like a Mother holding her child. When a child comes to its parent, mother or father and wants something, do they apply a formula?

You know prayer is not some formula or ritual that other people have to see and admire and approve of for it to work. In fact, that’s exactly what Jesus said that prayer was not. It’s not a ritual, it’s not a formula, it’s not a rite of passage, it’s not something that people have to be impressed with.

Close the door, talk to your Father in heaven in secret and He’ll reward you. It’s just ‘coming as we are’ in simple language, sharing our heart with God, praising Him, thanking Him, asking Him for forgiveness and receiving it, asking Him for help or guidance or wisdom or compassion or strength or patience and receiving it.

My prayer life is really simple, I have to tell you, there’s no rocket science, I don’t get dressed up. I get up in the morning between four and five. I have a shower. I make a cup of tea. I put a crumpet in the toaster and get some honey and I sit down and I wake up. And I just start spending some time with God, talking in the exactly the same sorts of words and phrases and sentences that I’d use with you or anybody else.

This morning I was praying, “Lord, I’m really tired today. Wake me up, refresh me, I just praise you and thank you that you’re going to do that. Lord, my wife’s not feeling well this morning; can you just be with her? Can you heal her?” Just like that, just like that!

Not casual to the point of disrespect, never that, but God is my God and I have a right view of our relationship but he’s also my Dad, that’s what Jesus loved to call him, Dad, and everybody got upset with Jesus for calling God, Abba; Dad. And in that relationship, it’s not about ritual or formula over and over again.

Now I’m not saying that prayer’s that have been written down by someone else aren’t meaningful. A lot of people find that they are. But they’re meaningless if we just rattle this stuff off mindlessly, over and over again believing somehow that the ritual is going to get us in because that’s not how relationships are.

That’s not how a loving Father wants to relate to you and me. And Jesus said:

It’s not the way it is, don’t keep babbling on like pagans, don’t be like the hypocrites standing up impressing other people and praying in front of them.

Go into your room, go to a quiet place, the safest place on earth and say exactly what’s on our heart without pretence, without fear, just exactly the way it is and communicate with God because, you know something, that’s what prayer is. How do I know? Because that’s what Jesus said it was.

Sometimes – we take a look in the mirror and think – God would never accept me.  I mean – I can’t just wander up and pray to Him … nah – that wouldn’t work.

Whenever I speak with people about praying, you know one of the most common reactions I get is this, “Oh, I’m not good enough. No, I’m just not good enough. That person over there, well she probably would be and that one over yonder there, well yeah, I think he would be but not me. You see, you don’t know me, I mean the things I’ve said and done and no, I just couldn’t bowl up to God and start praying.”

That’s your reaction. In one sense you’ll be right but in another, completely and utterly wrong. Because on the one hand God is a perfect and holy God and we all fall well and truly short of that and on the other, He knows that and that is why He sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to die for us. To pay for all that ‘falling short’ that we do, so that we can have free access to him. Jesus it turns out is the key. God is having a party and it is come as you are.

Now, when musicians, when someone who sings songs, you know, when they play a song that people like, people love that, ‘play that one again’. When someone like me who tells stories, tells a story that someone’s heard before, people say, “I think I’ve heard that story before somewhere.”

So I’m sorry if you’ve heard this story that I’m about to share with you. Be humble, sit down and enjoy it with me but I’m going to share a story that I’ve shared before because it’s a good one.

It goes back a few years when I went to Government House in Australia where the Governor General lives. At the time he was Sir William Dean. The Governor General is the Queens representative and the Head of State, he doesn’t have a political role, he has a constitutional role.

Anyway Sir William Dean is a great guy and he’s a Christian and I asked him to do a radio spot for me and he said yes. So I drove to this beautiful old place called Yarralumla, that’s where Government House is, just outside the National capital, Canberra. And when you get there you drive down this beautiful street with all these trees.

When you get there, there are two gates, the one on the left is like the staff, or what I call the servants entrance, the one on the right, that’s the formal entrance where Presidents and Kings and Queens and Prime Ministers drive up to Government House. So, I’m driving along in my car. I had a sort of burgundy coloured car and I drive up and I think, “ooh, I’ll go to the left hand one.” I went to the left hand one and the security guard said, “Oh Mr Dymet, we’re expecting you, could you please go to the main gate?”

So I go to the main gate and it glides open effortlessly and I drive up this huge sweeping driveway that Presidents and Kings and Queens have driven up and I look on the bonnet of my car and blow me down there is a big bird plop right in the middle of the bonnet.

And all the way up I’m thinking, “Augh, if only I’d washed my car!” And you get there and James the butler (who had been the butler for 38 years) opens the door and ushers me in and all the time I’m thinking, “If only I had washed my car”.

I was so self conscious and then Sir William Dean came and I met the man and he is the most humble and delightful human being you would ever care to meet. He almost made me feel as though he was the one honoured by me being there.

Now, he’s a small man, he’s not a tall man but in my eyes and in my heart, he’s huge in stature. He didn’t give a toss about whether or not I had washed my car and I’m sure he didn’t even notice. He even invited myself, my wife and my daughter back the next day to have a wander around the grounds.

Incredible, it’s a great picture and it’s one that I’ll never forget because he was so not what I expected. And over the years I’ve discovered it’s exactly the same with God. He looks straight past our spots and blemishes and stains to our hearts. He just takes us the way we are.

He can because of Jesus because Jesus paid the price. When you and I put our faith in Him and what He did on the cross, you and I are wiped clean. When we just believe, when we just put our faith in Jesus and that cross we have open access to God.

Have a listen to the huge eloquent, well structured, articulate prayer of faith prayed by the first person whoever went to heaven because he believed in Jesus. It was one of the criminals who was crucified along with Jesus.

Now one of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Jesus, he said, “Aren’t you the Christ, the saviour? Go on, save yourself and us.” But the other criminal on the other side, (there were two criminals crucified either side of Jesus), the other one, the second one rebuked the first one, he said, “Don’t you fear God? You’re under the same sentence as this Jesus. Now we’re being punished justly, we’re getting what we deserve but Jesus hasn’t done anything wrong.” Then this second criminal says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” You know what Jesus said, He answered him, He said, “I tell you the truth, before today is over you will be with Me in paradise.

Here’s this criminal about to die, he has nothing he can possibly give to Jesus, nothing he could possibly do for Jesus. You and me we wouldn’t have given him a prayer but that’s all he had and that’s all it took. From his cross to Jesus’ cross, out of his pain, about to die, he says just a little sentence, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” A few short words, you know what they were? They were a prayer of faith.

Here was a man who was so low, who was dying because he’d broken the law. He couldn’t do anything for God. He was so low, just looking at Jesus and speaking a few words in faith and Jesus answers him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

When are we finally going to wake up that that’s what prayer is, a simple step of faith right from where we are. God’s having a party, it’s ‘come as you are’ and the key is Jesus. A simple faith and all my ‘yuck’ is paid for on that cross. I can come to God through that faith in Jesus in my time of need. And that’s exactly the way that God sees it.

You see it’s not just me talking this. This is how God sees it. Later on in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews, it’s kind of towards the end, chapter 4, verse 14 he says something like this:

Jesus isn’t just some God in heaven, he’s walked in our shoes, he’s been through every trial, every temptation that we have to deal with. So he gets it, he understands, he understands exactly what we’re going through and because of that we can come boldly before the throne of grace with a quiet confidence that we’ll find grace and mercy just in time to meet our every need. He gets it!” I love that phrase, “Come boldly before the throne of grace,” because it means we’re putting our confidence in Jesus not in us.

I want to share with you a phone message that came from a listener that I received just the other day and it says it all. He said this, “I’m only a new Christian and I’ve been with the Lord probably about ten weeks and I’d been going great guns and then I had a night when I went out drinking and I told my friend I wasn’t sure if I could be a Christian anymore. I felt real terrible about it and I thought I’d really blown this whole thing with God and it’s only when you came on the radio tonight that I realised that that’s why Jesus died for me. I want to say, God bless you guys and thank God for His grace. God bless you man, it was really awesome tonight.

That’s what happens when we finally come to grips with the fact that it’s through Jesus that we come to God and that’s why we can come and pray, that’s why we can sit down BOLDLY before God, before the throne of grace and say, “You know God, I blew it today. I need your help”.

Prayer is an awesome thing. God is having a party, it’s come as you are and the only reason it’s like that is that when we put our faith in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross, we have open access to God.

People talk about praying – but exactly how do we do that?  I mean – do you just sit down and talk to God?  Do you ask Him for stuff?  What is prayer and how do you do it?

Prayer is one of those things that a lot of people do but very few people talk about. As a society we acknowledge the validity of prayer especially in times of disaster or national mourning. After a tsunami or an earthquake everyone seems to want to pray but when it comes down to it, how do I pray? Very few people ever talk about that.

That’s why we’ve been spending a bit of time on exactly that over this week so if you’re one of 75% of all adults who say that they’ve prayed at least once in the last month, how do you pray? I mean how? What are the things you talk about to God, do you spend the whole time asking him for things? Or is there something more to prayer? Should there be more to prayer?

Well it turns out that Jesus wanted His disciples to know how to pray so He told them plain and simple, the question is, what did He say when He taught them how to pray? Yesterday we talked a little bit about the Lord’s Prayer, the whole “Our Father” thing.

Today we’re going to look at exactly what Jesus did say about this whole prayer thing. Well here’s what He said, if you want to have a look at it, it’s in the first book of the New Testament, Matthew’s gospel chapter 6, begins at verse 5:

When you pray,” he said, “Don’t be like the hypocrites, they just love standing up in the synagogues, on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you something, they’ve received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room and close the door and pray to your Father in secret. He’s unseen. Then your Father sees what’s done in secret will reward you and when you pray, don’t keep babbling on like the pagans. They think they’ll be heard because of their many words.

No, don’t be like them because your Father knows what you need before you even ask him. This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you but if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you your sins.”

Now when you look at that little bit of teaching, a short as it is on prayer, 7 simple points come out. Now I’m not one to do points much when I’m speaking but you don’t remember these, anyone can figure it out. Pick up a Bible and it jumps out at you.

It’s Matthew chapter 6, verses 5-13 and if you don’t have a Bible go to a website called www.biblegateway.com, on the net and you can go and look it up, Matthew chapter 6: 5-13 and print it off. Here are the 7 simple points that Jesus makes.

The first thing is, ‘do it in secret’. Prayer is a personal, private, intimate thing. It’s not for show, it’s not there to impress other people, it’s not to make other people think, “boy, boy he can pray. She’s really good at praying”. No, it’s not that. Think about husband and wife communication, the deep things, the important things, the personal things.

How do they talk about those? In private, it’s not for show. “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites; don’t stand on those street corners or the synagogue to be seen. No, no, no, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what’s done in secret, will reward you.” Do it in secret.

The second thing is, ‘it’s not about a lot of words’. We talked about that yesterday. Prayer is not some huge formula, you don’t have to impress God somehow. We don’t have to know exactly the right words to say to extract blessings out of God. It’s exactly the opposite. Just go tell him in our own words the way we see it. Simple, straight forward, just the way it is. A W Tozer who wrote this wonderful book, “The Pursuit of God”, says this:

If we would find God amidst all the worlds’ distractions, first we have to determine to find Him and then proceed along a path of simplicity. Now as always, God discovers Himself to babes and hides Himself in thick darkness to the wise and prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him, put away all effort to impress Him and come with a guileless candour of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will respond.

That’s exactly what Jesus said, “don’t go there and try and impress God, not about a whole bunch of words, just go the way we are and tell him the way it is”.

The third thing Jesus says is, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” In other words, worshipping God and adoring God and one of the things that happen when a marriage loses its gloss is that the husband and wife lose that wonder and awe that they had of one another. Just looking at each other and adoring her or adoring him, it’s a natural path of a relationship.

When we look at God, when we look at who He is, it’s right that we should worship Him. It’s a wonderful thing to bow down and to worship God. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Worship is a really important part of prayer.

The fourth one is ‘joining hands to do his will’, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is really important for me. We can get the God-me relationship all round. We think God’s there just to do things for me like a sugar daddy. No! no! I’m there to participate with Him in what He’s doing. I want His rule to happen in my life and around me, “Father, I want your will, your kingdom come, your will be done.”

The fifth point is this, “Give us this day our daily bread”. You know something, it’s okay to ask God for things we need, for food or water or shelter or strength or wisdom or home or safety or family. “Lord, I’d really like a special touch from you today.” He knows our needs already even before we open our mouths, he knows what we need. It’s okay to ask God to give us our daily bread and to give us the things that we need.

The sixth point is forgiveness. Now this is a big deal,

“Forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.”

This is a sheer acknowledgment that we make mistakes. Pride says, “I don’t need forgiveness”, humility recognises we do and you notice something? God puts a high premium on this, it’s a big deal.

He wants to set us free from our unforgiveness. Forgive us our debts or our sin or our trespasses as we also have forgiven our debtors, those who have sinned or trespassed against us. “Father, I blew this today, I did this wrong today would you please forgive me?”

And lastly, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” In other words, Lord I want to live my life for you, protect me from falling over all the time. I don’t want to do this in my own strength because you know something, I can’t. I want to do it in your strength, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”

Now this is real simple, 7 simple points:

1. Do it in secret.
2. It’s not about a lot of words.
3. Praise God.
4. Join hands to do his will.
5. Pray for the things we need.
6. Ask for forgiveness.
7. Ask him to help us, not to lead us into temptation.

It’s really simple and some days one or more of those things will be more important than others. Sometimes you’re struggling with temptation, other days it’s the ‘daily bread’ that we need. What I’m saying is there’s different emphasis, different issues on different days.

But you know something, these very simple, down to earth guidelines are such a wonderful inside look at how God sees prayer. They give us balance, they give us direction for this wonderful dialogue, this wonderful conversation with God that we call prayer.